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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The Phantom Detective, November 1934, with "The Tomb of Death"
Murder stalks in the wake osf a famous aviator's disappearance in this smashing crime novel! Follow the Phantom as he trails a human monster to his grisly lair of terror and torture!
LUTHER LANE leaned back against the cushions of his expensive limousine. His square, rugged face was deeply etched with lines of sorrow. Grief showed, too, in his deep-set eyes. But the grief was overshadowed by some conflicting emotion that seemed to add hardness to his eyes and square the line of his aggressive jaw.
Another man rode with the millionaire broker in the tonneau of the limousine, a tall, well-built man whose tanned face was partly concealed by a black silk mask. Luther Lane's companion was the Phantom!
Lane's somber eyes rested on the touches of silver that marked the temples of his companion, saw the shadowy lines around the mouth and chin of the Phantom.
"YOU are an older man than I had expected," he said slowly. "Frank Havens gave me to understand that you were quite young— in fact, about the age of my son— Eric." His voice trembled a little at the mention of the son who had been buried that very afternoon.
The Phantom smiled politely. He could not tell Luther Lane that he had been a close friend of Eric Lane's and that as Richard Curtis Van Loan, he had often been a guest at their Park Avenue home. For this reason, to conceal his actual identity, he had added fifteen years to his age by clever make-up, and had completely changed the contour of his face beneath the black silk mask that was the badge of the Phantom.
"Perhaps you misunderstood Havens," the Phantom said. "Or perhaps I'm not as old as I look."
For a minute Lane was silent.
"I don't know how much Frank Havens told you when he relayed my wild hope that you would help me," he finally said slowly. "I know that you undertake to solve only the most difficult crimes. It may be that I have asked you to help me explore a mare's nest. Our trip may be an absolute dud."
"From what Frank Havens told me, and from what I've read about your son's ability as an aviator, I am glad you called me in to help you," the Phantom said quietly. "Briefly, it sums up this way: Your son Eric was breaking all records in a flight around the world for a fifty-thousand dollar prize. He was leading the van, when suddenly he seemed to disappear. Cabled messages from China reported that his plane had crashed in a desolate part of the mountain district there. Eric was killed in the crash. His body was shipped home, and just this afternoon he was buried with full military honors.
"That much was public news, for your son was something of a national hero. Frank Havens told me that you had reason to believe that Eric was not killed in the crash of his plane— that you suspected foul play. Isn't that about right?"
"I CAN'T believe that Eric was killed accidentally." There was a strained, harsh note in the stricken father's voice. "His flying was perfect, his plane was always in the best of condition. He was a skilled mechanic himself, and exceedingly careful in his inspection of his ship before every flight. I believe that there is some mystery behind the death of my son. That's why I begged Frank Havens to get you to go to the cemetery with me tonight. I want to open Eric's coffin. Health regulations did not allow me to open it at the house. I want to see if he was killed by a fall from the air— or whether he was murdered!"
The Phantom's brows met in a frown.
"It may be coincidence, but there was considerable fighting going on in the district where your son's plane fell," he pointed out. "You know the old Empress Dowager, Quon Shang, buried a fabulous collection of jewels with her husband. Then when her son had to abdicate the throne, she tried to have them dug up secretly, to finance a revolution so she could take the throne herself. I believe that a group of Manchurian bandits got wind of the attempt, and a pitched battle ensued. The jewels are supposed to have disappeared then."
"Do you think Eric could have landed safely and been murdered by those bandits?" asked Lane.
"I don't know. An examination of the coffin, however, should serve to tell us that."
THE big limousine rolled through the gates of the fashionable Rocky View Cemetery. The car halted in the semicircular drive and Lane got out, followed by the tall masked figure.
As they neared the big mausoleum the Phantom experienced an unaccountable tightening of his nerves. His hand slid toward the pocket of his coat and the butt of his .38 snuggled against his palm. His dark, hard eyes stabbed at the shadows that fringed the monuments, tombs and gravestones on either side of their path.
But his searching stare failed to pick up any sign of a lurking form. The cemetery was breathlessly silent.
Yet— the feeling of danger still persisted.
Luther Lane pushed open the gate of a low, grilled fence. Within the enclosure, clumps of bushes threw grotesque and distorted shadows on the white granite mausoleum. The fragrance of the shrubs had a sickly, sweetish odor to the Phantom's nostrils.
Lane's gaze was on the Phantom as he took a leather key case from his pocket. But Van Loan's eyes were raking the dark masses of bushes that lined the path around the crypt. Then— as Luther Lane pushed the key toward the lock on the door of the vault— the Phantom knew that his presentiment of danger had not been generated by nerves.
He saw a hand protruding through a clump of bushes— a long, thin-fingered hand that loomed ghastly and evil in the moonlight. It seemed almost disembodied against the dark background of the bushes. The clawing fingers held a slender round object that looked like a cane. The hand started to lift.
The Phantom shouted warning to Lane. Then he sprang in the direction of the unearthly hand. His strong fingers hooked around the protruding wrist. There was nothing ethereal about the wrist when he tried to jerk it up. There was a sound of crashing branches as the owner of the hand tried to jerk away from the grasp of the Phantom. Then another hand shot through and long, raking nails gouged the flesh of the Phantom's wrist and disappeared as an arm was drawn back.
THE Phantom's powerful muscles strained as he strove to pull the struggling man through the bushes. It was like fighting with a ghost. Through the screening bushes, Van could dimly see the man writhing and twisting in a vain effort to free himself.
Then, of a sudden, the struggles seemed to grow weaker. For a second or two longer, Van felt the frantic resistance to his powerful leverage. Then the fingers uncurled slowly. The whole hand seemed to wither in his grasp. Dick Van Loan gave a powerful surge with his arms and shoulders— and a limp and lifeless figure came crashing through the bushes, almost into his arms!
As he pulled on the captured wrist, the Phantom's eyes had jerked back to Luther Lane. He saw the broker reel and fall as though stricken down by some invisible force that emanated from the door of the crypt. A single, startled glance told him that Luther Lane was dead!
VAN'S eyes widened on the dead man he had jerked through the shrubbery. Unseeing, almond-shaped eyes stared up at him from a face that was unmistakably Oriental. Van's eyes slithered over the loose flapping clothes, the coolie shirt and trousers of a low-caste Chinese.
Suddenly the Phantom stiffened. His keen ears had caught a faint rustle, like the sound of a vagrant breeze fluttering through the leaves. But no breath of wind stirred to disturb the foliage.
The Phantom crouched motionless, trying to orient the faint noise. It came from beyond the shrubbery that had concealed the killer at his feet. For Van's quick brain had deduced that the dead Chinaman at his feet had mysteriously murdered Luther Lane— then when captured in the Phantom's powerful grip, had preferred death himself rather than to face the white man's justice and the electric chair.
The assassin had not been alone. His companion was now beating a stealthy retreat, screened from sight by the flowering shrubs.
The Phantom's jaw hardened and the pupils of his eyes contracted to gleaming slits. He gave little thought to the fact that he risked the mysterious death that had overtaken Luther Lane. His only thought was one of savage fury. One of the murderers was fleeing. He must be made to pay the penalty for the death of Luther Lane.
Van took two swift strides, and hurtled his body through the shrubbery. He saw a dim and ghostly figure racing through the moonlight, another Chinaman who was fleeing toward the cemetery wall, a hundred yards away.
Van's long legs carried him in swift pursuit.
THE Phantom saw that he would be unable to close the gap between them before the escaping Chinaman reached the wall. His hand flew to his pocket. Without checking his stride the Phantom whipped up his gun and snapped a shot at the blurred target ahead. He could have drilled the man between the shoulder blades, but Van wanted to capture him alive, if possible.
The eerie silence of the graveyard, was shattered by the roar of the Phantom's automatic. The Chinaman faltered, staggered; then he plunged on toward the wall. He limped perceptibly as he wove toward the safety of the stone rampart that circled the cemetery.
Now the wounded man had reached the wall. He was dragging his body up onto the flat top of the wall when Van's gun barked again. The Chinaman jerked spasmodically, crawled a few inches and then toppled out of sight on the other side.
The Phantom's ears were sharply attuned as he raced toward the wall. He listened for some sound that would indicate other hidden foes on the other side of the barrier. But the deep silence of the cemetery was broken only by the pounding of his own feet. Dick Van Loan's lithe body lifted in a long leap. His left hand flattened on the top of the wall as he vaulted the five-foot barrier with effortless ease.
It was no distinct surprise to him when his eyes glimpsed three dark menacing figures reaching for his flying body. His gun was swishing viciously through the air, even before his feet had struck the ground. The sinister figures seemed to cringe backward— but something soft and clinging encircled Van's neck and tightened.
The Phantom clawed desperately at the silk cord that was strangling him, but it seemed to be buried in the flesh of his neck. The breath was choked from his lungs, blood pounded at his temples and he felt his eyes straining at his sockets. He reeled on his feet, felt the dark mantle of unconsciousness creeping over him.
Fierce, untamed hatred blazed in his brain. He tried to lift the automatic, desperately striving to take one or more of the murderous beasts with him. But he heard the roar of his gun as from a great distance. A deep, black pit opened in front of him, and he plunged headlong into its gloomy depths.
CONSCIOUSNESS returned slowly. Van's eyes slitted open and his hand started toward his neck. He felt as though he had swallowed sulphuric acid. His whole throat seemed raw and inflamed. But as his hand lifted, it brushed against a hard-soled shoe. He turned his head slowly, and saw that he was bundled at the bottom of a car. Three men sat on the rear seat, their feet using his body as a foot rest.
For a second or two the Phantom lay motionless, while his fogged brain cleared and pictured the past events. He heard low, guttural voices, sing-songing rapidly. The men were talking in Cantonese, a language in which the Phantom was most proficient. He heard one of the men address a second, who seemed to be the leader of the thugs, calling him Li-Hung. The Phantom's breath whistled through his clenched teeth. He knew of Li-Hung by reputation.
Other than by reputation, no white man knew the mysterious leader of the underworld forces of Chinatown, the undisputed leader of the lawless element of the Orientals in the city. But even the police who covered Pell and Mott Streets— and the detectives who were assigned to the Chinatown district— had never seen Li-Hung.
Van's fingers lifted to his face, and he found that his mask had been stripped off. Somewhat grimly, he felt relief that he had assumed a disguise before going to Luther Lane's house. Whether or not his present ride ended in death— and from the chanting undertones of Li-Hung and his thugs, it seemed destined to end that way— the real identity of the Phantom would still be preserved. And if he escaped, he would still be able to carry on his work— for once the real features of the Phantom were known to anyone in the underworld, either white or yellow, his brilliant career as a sleuth would be ended.
From the low-voiced conversation of the Chinese, Van tried to learn what motive lay behind the killing of Luther Lane. But the murder was not discussed. Rather, the Phantom was the chief topic of their conversation. Li-Hung was savagely elated with the capture of the man who had threatened the culmination of some great plan he mysteriously mentioned. With the death of the Phantom— they could proceed in safety.
AS he listened, Van's brain was busy trying to evolve a plan of escape. He was not tied, and judging by their total lack of watchfulness, his captors believed that he was still unconscious. His automatic was gone, but the Phantom felt that if the opportunity arose to make a break, his strength and agility would overcome that handicap.
His eyes slitted, and his head turned slowly, as he sized up the three occupants of the tonneau of the car. A well directed kick would topple the man at the left end of the seat. Van thought that he could snap his body up enough to fasten his fingers in the throat of the arch-villain Li-Hung.
After that— it would be in the laps of the gods, whether he could battle his way to liberty before the third thug struck him down. It was against desperate odds, but anything would be better than to lay supine and helpless, awaiting the fate that Li-Hung evidently had in store for him, a fate that was only hinted in the brief snatches of conversation.
THE Phantom saw Li-Hung glance out the window, and then in rapid Cantonese, the leader remarked: "We are almost at Headquarters. Blindfold the foreign dog and escort him to the meeting room. I will show my loyal followers what fate awaits those who would obstruct the path of Li-Hung." Something in the man's tones brought a frown to the forehead of the Phantom. Suddenly he resolved to delay any attempt to escape. He wanted to see the face of this mysterious leader of crime in Chinatown. He wanted a chance to meet the formidable Li-Hung face to face.
The Phantom's face was expressionless as long-fingered yellow hands with long, pointed nails grabbed his shoulder. Like a sack of potatoes, he was lifted and half thrown across the knees of one man, while Li-Hung himself wound an evil-smelling scarf around his eyes. As the leader bent to fasten the blindfold, he was so close that the Phantom could hear the loud ticking of a watch in Li-Hung's pocket. The touch of the hands of Li-Hung and his thugs made the flesh of Van Loan crawl as though they were unclean and leprous.
A wave of anger surged through the Phantom's brain. His hands itched to reach out and clamp around the throat of the beast who had ordered Lane's cowardly, coldblooded murder.
But sanity cooled his rage. Close as he was to Li-Hung, Van knew that the silk noose, which still dangled around his neck, could be jerked tight and choke him into unconsciousness before he could even harm the leader. Better to submit to their manhandling now, and await a more favorable opportunity to make a break for freedom.
It seemed but a minute or so later that the car slithered to a stop. With a guard grasping each elbow, the Phantom was hurried across a sidewalk, and up a short flight of four steps. After that they apparently went through a series of rooms or passageways. He heard doors opened and closed and a variety of odors greeted his nostrils; he heard a low hubbub of Chinese voices and smelled unwashed bodies; a second later the pungent odor of burning joss and incense told him he was passing a shrine or prayer idol; then they moved along a rough board floor and the clinging fumes from the pipes of opium smokers assailed his olfactory organs.
VAN judged that they had been walking nearly five minutes, following a devious route and passing through several doors, when he felt his feet sinking into the luxurious depths of a soft piled carpet. His captors marched him across the carpet and halted. The Phantom heard the soft sound of a gong; then Li-Hung ordered the servant who answered his summons to gather the men who were in the building for a conference. The servant's feet slithered across the carpet and a door closed softly.
Li-Hung ordered the guards to strip the blindfold from the prisoner's eyes. For a second Van blinked in the light of the room, while his eyes took in the richly furnished headquarters of Li-Hung. His gaze moved to the big man who sat in a carved teakwood chair opposite the spot where the Phantom's captors had halted.
Long, glittering eyes of a greenish hue gleamed on the Phantom from a face of parchment yellow. Tight skin pulled across high cheek bones made a thin red slit of Li-Hung's mouth. The leader of the murderers wore a black skull cap, but his head seemed shaved beneath the black head-covering.
SLOWLY, and without visible emotion, Van Loan's eyes moved over the big, formidable figure in the teakwood chair. He had glimpsed Li-Hung but dimly in the car. Van believed that he was the first white man to see the mysterious ruler of Chinatown's gangland. He could readily see how the man could have such a power over his countrymen.
Ruthless determination and cruelty were stamped in Li-Hung's evil face. The glittering eyes beneath his straight black brows, the predatory nose that was hooked like the beak of an eagle, the thin lips and the sharp, jutting chin— all spoke of savage power and evil strength.
Yet the man was a mixture of thug and gentleman. His nails were carefully manicured, his fingers long and tapering and the feet which showed beneath the ceremonial robe which he had donned, were shod in expensive cordovan. The furnishings of the room were antiques of priceless value.
Li-Hung's black brows met in a frown under the Phantom's stare. Suddenly he spoke, in rapid Cantonese.
"What will you give to save your worthless life?" he asked.
Van's face remained expressionless. He gave no sign that he understood what the robed figure had asked. Li-Hung shrugged. His head turned toward the door as a half-dozen men trailed in, bowed and took places along the wall.
The Phantom's eyes widened as his gaze wandered across the faces of the members of Li-Hung's gang of thugs. He had never seen a more vicious crowd than the cruel, beetle-browed, slant-eyed men who had gathered at the orders of their leader.
When the last man had found a place against the wall, the leader of the bandit crew lifted his hand. A sardonic smile curved his thin lips into a leer, as he addressed his men:
"Look upon the prisoner, my men. He is the one whom the foreign dogs call The Phantom. By reputation he is the most feared of the police of the White Ghosts. He was but an infant in matching wits with Li-Hung. He thought he would block our perfect plan— but he was mistaken. For he will die— as do all who dare to oppose Li-Hung and his Tigers."
A LOW murmur of surprise rose from Li-Hung's men at the mention of the Phantom's name. Van could see fear and venomous hatred in their faces. Some of them had already felt the Phantom's power, for he had operated before in Chinatown's underworld. Eyes gleamed red as they stared at the man who was feared and hated by criminals on three continents. The Phantom felt the hair along the back of his neck lifting under the menace that gleamed from scowling faces.
The Phantom still acted as though he had not understood a word that was said. His eyes went back to the parchment-like face of Li-Hung.
"Dog of the White Ghosts," the leader spoke in English that betrayed a slight faltering accent, "what did you and the man who died seek at the grave of his ancestors?"
"The man Lane wished to see the face of his man child who was buried this afternoon," Van replied, in the flowery language the Orientals use in speaking English. "By the laws, he was not permitted to open the casket of the dead at his house. He wished a final glimpse of his son."
THE hard almond-shaped eyes that glinted like lacquered jade bored into the Phantom's face.
"You lie," Li-Hung said in clipped tones. "He would not take the greatest man-hunter in the country with him for a simple mission like that. Tell me the truth and your worthless life may be saved."
The Phantom's cheeks showed crimson badges of anger. His jaw hardened and there was a rasp in his voice as he said:
"You yellow rat, do you think I'd accept your word that my life would be spared, if I told you what I know? The murder of Luther Lane will bring the foreign police about your ears. Every hovel in Chinatown will be searched, and the guilty ones will be sent to the chair where their lives will be forfeited for that murder."
One or two of the thugs along the wall understood English. There was a second of indistinct muttering as the scathing rebuke was translated. Then a low, ominous growl emanated from the hatchet men.
"Kill the foreign dog," they growled. "Torture him and slay him."
Li-Hung's manicured hand lifted and silence fell on those present.
"You have passed sentence upon him," Li-Hung said softly. "He shall die."
He clapped his hands and two of the Chinese thugs grasped the Phantom.
"Take him to the dungeon," Li-Hung's voice was cold and brittle. "He shall meet the fate of those who defy Li-Hung. Execute him and sew him in a sack, then throw the weighted bag into the river. The white man's world will never know what fate overtook the famous pursuer of criminals."
A murmur of approval came from the stony-faced thugs. Silently the Phantom cursed himself for not having made a break while he was in the car. He knew that death awaited him at the hands of the executioners of Li-Hung.
Death in itself did not frighten him. In his adventurous career he had too often come face to face with death to place any great value on his own life. But the thought of going out without at least striking one blow at this fiendish organization who murdered so ruthlessly, seared his brain like a red-hot iron. The evil, grinning face that mocked him from the raised dais was blurred by a red haze before his eyes.
The Phantom leaned back and suddenly his arms and shoulders jerked forward. One of his captors swung off his feet, his grip loosened and the thug stumbled to his knees. Van's arm jerked loose; his fist swung and crashed against the chin of the second guard. The stricken Chinaman went down like a shattered tree. The Phantom knew he had no chance to escape. But one thought possessed him, to take the evil ruler of these thugs with him when he went.
Like a hurtling thunderbolt, Van Loan's body shot forward. His hands were flung out, fingers reaching for the wrinkled yellow throat of Li-Hung. The leader of the thugs darted from the teakwood chair, threw out his hands to ward off the Phantom's flying body. He might as well have tried to turn aside a springing tiger. Van's fingers hooked and clamped around Li-Hung's throat, and they smashed to the floor, with the Phantom on top.
Shrill cries burst from the lips of Li-Hung's men, and like a single unit they swept forward. Hands reached for the Phantom, tried to tear him loose from his victim. But his grip on the throat of the Chinese bandit chief tightened inexorably. He saw the yellow face mottle with purple, saw Li-Hung's eyes begin to bulge.
Savage exultation pounded in his veins. His life wouldn't be a total loss. The murder of Luther Lane would at least be avenged, and the ruler of the Chinese underworld would trouble the police no more.
LONG, slashing nails tore at the Phantom's face, gouged at his eyes, and fingers fastened in his hair. Feet beat against his ribs and fists flailed at his head. But through the fog of hate that enveloped him he saw only the purpling face of the evil demon beneath him.
Then something cold seemed to envelop his face, and the powerful fumes of a drug beat at the Phantom's brain. He held his breath, tried to keep from inhaling the noxious fumes. Desperately he battled to ward off the blackness that was creeping over his brain— at least until the writhing, struggling body beneath him should stiffen in death.
The drug-soaked cloth clung closer to his face. Van felt the strength going from his hands— the room pitched and swayed before his glassy eyes. Then he toppled sideways to the floor.
The anaesthetic acted swiftly but its effect was brief. Van's head was clearing before they had dragged him halfway across the room. Li-Hung clambered shakily to his feet. His face was a mask of febrile hate as his hands moved to his throat, still marked with the imprint of the Phantom's fingers.
"Off with his head," he croaked huskily in Cantonese. "Take him to the execution block."
THE Phantom's heart was bitter. He had failed in his effort of vengeance. He made no effort now to escape as two husky thugs jerked him roughly to his feet. Though his brain was clear again, Van let his legs go limp and feigned weakness and dizziness.
Li-Hung was mouthing curses in the celestial tongue when the Phantom was half-led and half-dragged out of the room. His captors rushed him along a dark passageway, then down two flights of stairs. Dank smells assailed his nostrils as he was dragged along a narrow alley between walls of stone.
Apparently he was still drugged by the anaesthetic when his guards halted before a plank door with a grilled iron window. One of them said something in a sing-song tone that the Phantom did not catch. He heard a key turn in a lock and the heavy door swung open. A huge Chinese, naked except for a pair of soiled ragged trunks, grinned viciously at them as the guards dragged the Phantom's limp body into the dungeon cell and propped him on his feet. Van let his body weave like a reed in the wind, but his eyes raked the room behind half closed lids.
He saw the giant Chinaman turn the big key in the lock of the door, then move to the corner where he picked up a wicked looking hatchet. It was rather a headman's ax, with a curved eight-inch blade that glittered under the electric light. The executioner's tongue dragged across his thumb, then he tried the edge of the ax. His eyes had a murderous, reddish tinge as they moved to the execution block in the corner of the cell.
The Phantom's heart skipped a beat as he saw the heavy block, with the sliding beam above it, hollowed out to close around his neck. Iron bands like handcuffs were chained to the floor. Here traitors to the gang, or captive enemies, were dragged to their knees, their hands locked in the iron bracelets and their heads clamped ready for the swift blow from the gleaming ax.
Beads of perspiration dotted the Phantom's brow as the half-naked hatchet man growled:
"Drag the foreign devil over and I will slice his pale, white neck for you."
UP to this second, the Phantom had been weak and pliant in their grasp. They tightened their grip on his wrist, started to drag him toward the execution block. Suddenly the comatose victim galvanized into life.
Van's body lurched sideways, jerking away from the man on his left. His shoulder crashed against the chest of the right-hand guard, nearly cracking a rib. The guard grunted and reached for Van's wrist with his free hand. But he was a split second too late.
The Phantom's fist had doubled, and with the man still gripping his wrist, had plunged into the pit of the guard's stomach. Part of the force of the blow was broken by the man's grip on Van's wrist; but it was powerful enough to double him up.
The big hatchet man mouthed a curse, and sprang forward swinging his gleaming ax in a vicious arc. Van's feet twisted about on the floor, as his right hand jerked loose from the man he had punched. He heaved his shoulders and swung his body and arm at the same time. The second guard was whipped off his feet, like the stooge of an adagio dancer, directly into the path of the descending ax. The man screamed, but the gleaming steel cut short the cry.
VAN threw his body swiftly to one side as the hatchet man whirled and struck again. The first man Van had shaken loose plunged in, swinging a wicked looking knife.
The Phantom's movements were swift and perfectly timed. He slid forward under the downward stroke of the knife and his left fist hooked up with the speed of a bullet. His knuckles crashed against the guard's chin, catapulting him backward.
Van didn't pause for a second. The big executioner was slow on his feet, but there was nothing slow about the hands that gripped the haft of the heavy ax. The Phantom could almost feel the air cleave behind him as the razor-edged ax swished past. He leaped over the man with the knife, reaching down to snatch the weapon as he leaped. Then he whirled to face the hatchet man.
As he crouched to meet the attack, Van's hip brushed against the wall. He swore viciously beneath his breath. He had let the big executioner pen him in a corner.
The red-eyed killer knew that he had the white ghost trapped. A look of ghoulish pleasure showed on his brutal face, and he licked his lips expectantly as his bare feet slid across the dungeon floor. The ax lifted, rested against the giant's shoulder, and his red-flecked eyes gleamed avidly.
Van's crouching body swayed a little at the hips, and his flaming eyes fixed on the wrists of his opponent, waiting for the man to start his murderous swing. Van's feet shifted on the floor; he feinted to the left with his shoulders, as though he was going to try to rush out in that direction. The giant's lips drew back in a lethal grin and his body turned a little to the right to meet Van's attempt at escape.
Like a broken field runner dodging a tackler, the Phantom started in one direction, then swerved to the right. Before the big man could swing to meet his rush to the right, Van's hand whipped up and forward, and the knife buried itself to the hilt, under the uplifted arm of the headman.
The Phantom had to throw himself through the air to escape the downward cut of the ax. Somehow he managed to avoid the cruel blow. Then he picked himself up from the floor, whirled toward his enemy, with only his bare hands as his weapons.
But the knife had gone true. The big Chinese was rocking on his feet like a blasted oak, clutching at the knife, trying to jerk it out. For two or three seconds he swayed, and then he plunged forward on his face.
VAN stopped to wipe the perspiration out of his eyes. Swiftly he took account of his enemies. The hatchet man's first blow had nearly severed the neck of one thug. The second guard was still out, from the knockout punch Van had parked on his chin. And the executioner himself was now stretched lifeless on the dungeon floor.
Van's fingers patted the belt of the unconscious thug, and found an automatic tucked in the waistband of the flopping pants. As he jerked it loose, the man's eyes opened. His frightened stare fixed on Van's face; then he opened his lips to scream.
The Phantom cut down with the barrel of the automatic, felt the hard steel rap against the skull of the Chinaman.
The thug's eyes rolled up until only the whites showed and Van left him just that way.
WITH a faint shudder at the sight of the severed neck of the first guard, Van moved toward the door. Except for the swiftness of his feet, and the agility of his brain, the Phantom knew that it would have been his lifeless body that would be staining the dungeon floor with a crimson flood.
He turned the key in the lock, opened the heavy door and pulled it shut behind him, locking it from the outside. He thrust the key in his pocket and moved along the dank corridor that led to the stairs. He was like a stalking jungle beast as he moved along the passageway, with no idea of where his silently moving feet were carrying him.
But his unerring sense of direction guided him away from the richly furnished room where Li-Hung and his cutthroats were awaiting word of his execution. He found another door on the opposite side of the hall, opened it carefully, with his fingers gripping the barrel of the automatic. To try to shoot his way out of this den of murderers would be folly.
A single shot would bring the thugs swarming like a pack of vicious rats upon him.
Another short hall ran directly in front of the door he had opened. He saw a flight of stairs leading down, with a door at the foot. Like a silent wraith, the Phantom went down the stairs. He breathed a little sigh of relief as the door below opened into a dark alley, littered with rubbish boxes and garbage cans.
Ghostly figures padded past the mouth of the alley, with the soft, slopping steps of Chinese slippered feet.
Van advanced toward the entrance with his eyes moving backward over his shoulder, and his ears attuned for an outcry from the building he had just left.
He stepped out onto Pell Street. Slant-eyed Chinese stared at him blankly, but if they wondered what a white devil was doing in the dark alley, their emotionless faces failed to portray their thoughts. Van moved eastward, through the dark and shadowy street, until he saw a cruising cab.
He flagged the driver, climbed in and dropped his weary body onto the cushions. The driver looked at his bareheaded, bloody passenger and said:
"Want me to get you a cop, eh, mister?"
VAN'S lips tightened in a sardonic grin.
"Never mind, buddy," he said. "It's too late now."
"You ought to keep away from these Chink joints," the driver advised seriously. "Some of these babies down here are tough as they come."
"I believe you thoroughly," Van said wearily. Then he gave the driver the address of his friend, Frank Havens, and leaned back against the cushions. The memory of the desperate battle in the dungeon cell sent a shiver through his body.
Then his jaw hardened. Li-Hung would pay for that— for that horrible experience as well as for the murder of Luther Lane.
NEARLY an hour later a grim, square-jawed young man sat in Frank Havens' spacious den, regarding the publisher with somber eyes. The Phantom had removed all traces of the disguise he had assumed before going to the home of Luther Lane. He looked fifteen years younger and his lean, tanned cheeks were unlined save for the faint traces of the marks from the raking fingernails of Li-Hung's men, that even collodion and flesh paint had failed to obliterate entirely.
Save for a certain hardness of jaw, and the bleak expression on his usually care-free face, he was again Richard Curtis Van Loan, known to his friends as a rich and very eligible young bachelor who loafed through a daily round of social activities without ever a care in the world.
There had been a time when Richard Curtis Van Loan was just a wealthy young idler. Left an orphan at an early age, his existence had been cut from the same pattern that shaped the lives of his Park Avenue friends: private schools, prep school and university, graduated into a life of aimless luxury and ease.
His life had been an empty void until the World War. Young Van Loan enlisted in the air service and was barely past his teens when he had qualified as a pilot. In the maelstrom of battle and strife, Dick Van Loan had gained a new perspective. He faced death on countless occasions and he came to know the grim specters that followed in the wake of wars— starvation, suffering and desolation. He had felt the electric thrill of combat, had learned to laugh in the face of danger, and had been saddened by the death of comrades and friends.
Peace time, after the Armistice, had brought him the tortures of the damned. The empty social whirl was stultifying in its endless monotony. Nerves that had been keyed to the pitch of battle threatened to crack under the strain of ennui. Just when it seemed that he could no longer endure the life of vapid pleasures, salvation came through an offer of a friend of his father.
Frank Havens, owner of a chain of newspapers from coast to coast, suggested to Richard Curtis Van Loan that he try to solve a murder mystery that had baffled the police. Thus was the Phantom born.
His first attempt at crime detection showed him that here was a career that offered all the thrills and dangers that he had found in the clouds over Flanders Fields. A loathing and hatred for criminals and all that they represented, together with the opportunity of benefiting mankind, afforded a panacea that his jangled nerves craved.
ONCE decided upon the career of a super-detective as his life's work, Richard Curtis Van Loan made his preparations with characteristic thoroughness. No single requisite was overlooked. He studied languages until he could fluently speak every major tongue, as well as several dialects. A detailed study of histrionics and the art of make-up made him an adept at disguise, to the extent that he could assume the identity and duplicate the physical appearance of almost any man whose features he could study, even to the inflections of voice and characteristic gestures.
He was a superb actor as well as an expert in hypnotism, magic and legerdemain. Both the occult and the known sciences had been subjects of intensive study. The methods of the world's greatest detectives were known to the Phantom and the newest methods of scientific crime detection were at his fingertips.
Truly was the Phantom called the world's greatest sleuth. He was hated and feared by criminals, respected and admired by the police of three continents.
YET, despite his world-wide reputation, the Phantom was a man of mystery to all save one. Frank Havens alone knew that Richard Curtis Van Loan and the Phantom, scourge of evil-doers, were one and the same.
Frank Havens' eyes were clouded with sorrow now at the loss of his friend Luther Lane. With amazement and wonder he had listened to Van Loan's recital of the actual events.
"What progress have the police made, Frank?" queried the Phantom finally.
"Not very much," Havens replied. "They know that Lane died from some mysterious poison, but they don't know how it was administered."
"Li-Hung must have picked up the body of the dead Chinaman that I dragged through the bushes before the chauffeur, aroused by the shots, got to Lane's body. I figure that Chinaman killed Lane, but I don't see yet how he accomplished it. When he saw he couldn't make a getaway, he committed suicide by poisoning himself the same way he poisoned Luther Lane.
"Yet I haven't been able to figure a motive. Lane has had no dealings with Chinese that I know about. The obvious theory is that some enemy of Lane's has hired Li-Hung to do the killing."
"The police are checking up on that angle now," Havens said. "Of course, they don't know about the Chinese angle, for there was no clue as to how Lane was killed. You'd better get in touch with them and give them that part of the story. They can start checking up in Chinatown."
"I'll call Inspector Crowley right away," Van said soberly. "I'm going to request that he leave the Chinatown investigation to me. Some of the headquarters men down there talk Chinese, but not well enough to get away with a disguise. And Li-Hung is too powerful a person to allow them to pick up any information by direct questioning."
FRANK HAVENS' brow creased in a frown.
"Better watch your step down there, Dick," he said. "I know you can talk Chinese like a native— but if you fall into Li-Hung's clutches again, your life won't be worth a plugged nickel."
The Phantom's face got hard and grim. There was a sharp edge to his voice as he said:
"There's a Chinese crook down there named Tom Wong, who may be a member of Li-Hung's gang. I got his picture from the newspaper files a few days ago. I'm planning to capture him and to take his place. I think the real motive behind Lane's murder is going to be found in Chinatown. The police can work at this end, trying to find out if some enemy of Lane's had been in contact with Li-Hung. But I'm going to try to get into Li-Hung's headquarters in person."
Havens looked worried. Patiently he tried to dissuade Van Loan from such a dangerous undertaking. But the Phantom believed that his plan offered the only chance of getting information regarding Li-Hung and his gang of murderous cutthroats.
The Phantom called Police Headquarters and talked with Inspector Crowley, who was in charge of the investigation. Van told the inspector the real facts of the murder by the Chinaman who had committed suicide, and related his experience at the hands of Li-Hung. He requested that the Chinatown angle be left in his hands, and Crowley, who had worked with the Phantom before, was perfectly willing to do so.
The inspector told Van that he had lined up three possible suspects who were to be at Headquarters in the morning for questioning. The Phantom said he would be down to take a look at the three men in the morning.
VAN talked with Havens for a few minutes more; then he started on the job of effecting an entrée to the inner circle of Chinatown's most vicious criminal circle, the cutthroat crew of the nefarious Li-Hung.
He glanced at his wrist-watch and saw that it was nearly two. He was tired and a dull ache throbbed at his temples from the effects of the strangling cord and the fight at Li-Hung's headquarters. But there was still work to be done. His jaw was set in a grim hard line as he walked down the steps of Havens' home.
He took a cab to one of the hideouts he had established in the city, where he could readily effect a change of appearance without attracting attention. In the basement floor apartment of a brownstone house on West Twenty-third Street, he went through an amazing metamorphosis.
Working from the photograph of which he had spoken to Havens, he deftly proceeded to alter his entire physiognomy. Grease paint changed his skin to a pasty yellow, while bits of adhesive tape lengthened his eyes to an Oriental slant. A special wax built up his cheekbones and gave his nose a twist like that of Tom Wong, the Chinese gangster. His hair underwent a change from brown to a sleek shiny black.
A cheap, ready-made suit of blue serge took the place of his own tailored clothes. He studied the shoes in the big wardrobe trunk, then took a pair of specially constructed tan shoes with rubber soles that looked like leather. A straight-brimmed sailor straw completed the ensemble and a glance in the mirror showed him that his memory and the photograph had served him well. He looked enough like Tom Wong to be his brother; and that was the role he intended to play until he had captured Wong and could take the gangster's place in the Chinese underworld.
He went back to the wardrobe trunk, took out a flat automatic and fitted it into a belt clip which he fastened inside the waistband of his trousers. He made sure that his flat make-up kit was strapped around his waist next to his skin; then he slipped out through the back door that led into an areaway. The Phantom was on the trail again!
THE next hour was spent in wandering through various spots in Chinatown, trying to locate Tom Wong. Van located the alley door through which he had escaped, but he was unable to find the passageway that led to Li-Hung's throne room. Twice he was stopped by bleak-eyed Chinese, who refused to let him pass, even though he explained in perfect Cantonese that he had recently arrived from San Francisco and was searching for his brother Tom Wong.
Tom Wong was a Chinese gangster with a police record. He belonged to none of the tongs, but was a free-lance gunman whose gun-hand was for hire, available to the highest bidder. The Phantom reasoned that Wong would either be a member of Li-Hung's murderous crew, or at least would be on speaking terms with some of Li-Hung's men.
As Van circulated among the yellow skinned men, his ears were constantly alert for news of Li-Hung. Several times he heard the man's name mentioned, generally in tones of awe and fear. On two different occasions a chance remark was dropped about the big deal that the nefarious underworld ruler was engaged in. But in neither case was the Phantom able to learn what plan Li-Hung had afoot.
Another hour passed, without the Phantom's even glimpsing the man he sought. He had begun to believe that Tom Wong had left the city, and he was casting around in his mind for another method of contacting Li-Hung, when he dropped into a rice wine and food shop, in a cellar on Mott Street.
Two Chinese were seated at a table in the corner of the room, both dressed in occidental clothes. One was a tall man, about the build of the Phantom. A faint scar marked the smooth yellow of his skin; a scar that partly circled his right eyebrow. The man with the scar was Tom Wong!
A WAITER came and took the Phantom's order. As he ate, Van covertly watched every motion of Wong, listened to his inflections of voice. Finally, when Wong and his companion got up to leave, Van Loan knew he could impersonate Tom Wong so closely that it would deceive even the closest acquaintances of the scar-faced Chinese.
Wong and his companion passed close to the Phantom's table as they left. The Phantom, his head bowed to his chest, heard Wong say that he was going to visit a dance hall near Fourteenth Street. Van smiled grimly and remembered that the Chinese bad man had a reputation as a ladies' man.
Van waited a minute after Wong had left the restaurant, then got up and paid his bill. Out on Mott Street, he saw the tall form of Wong moving northward. Unobtrusively, the Phantom trailed him, through the narrow crowded street, until Wong turned off and headed toward Fourteenth.
LIKE a dark shadow, the Phantom moved behind the man he was trailing. But, though he was able gradually to close the distance between himself and Wong without the big Chinese suspecting that he was followed, the Phantom's brow showed a faint crease of worry. They were moving uptown, and his chances for carrying out the plan he had conceived were getting more and more remote. Then finally he breathed a tiny sigh of relief. Wong turned into a dark, shadowy street. It was the opportunity Van had been seeking.
His smooth, noiseless strides increased until he was close beside Wong. He reached out, dropped his hand on the shoulder of the Chinaman, said softly in Cantonese:
"I want to speak with you, Tom Wong."
The scar-faced Chinese whirled and in the flickering light of a corner street light the Phantom saw a gun gleaming dully. A look at Wong's eyes told him the man was partly doped. In a split second, Van saw that he had pursed the wrong tactics. Wong was going to shoot!
These thoughts flashed through the Phantom's brain while Wong's hand flashed to the lapel of his coat, and reappeared with the gun. Desperately, the Phantom threw himself sideways, and his fist lashed out with incredible speed. He felt the impact of his knuckles against the gangster's chin, at the same instant that Wong's gun roared. He felt the pluck of the bullet as it whisked through the cloth of his coat.
Wong staggered back, sat down hard on the sidewalk, partly stunned. The Phantom's left hand darted down and fastened in the collar of the Chinaman's coat. His right hand snapped across in a short, vicious hook and Tom Wong's body went limp in his grasp.
The Phantom dragged Wong into a narrow alleyway between two buildings. The noise of the shot had been partly muffled by the cloth of Van's coat. He hoped that if the police had heard the sound, they would attribute it to the backfire of an automobile.
For two or three minutes, he listened to the sound of pounding feet. Then the street was silent and Van was satisfied that there would be no interference from the police. He started dragging the unconscious man back toward the mouth of the alley.
The gunman started to wiggle in his grasp. Van reached down with his right hand and jerked Wong to his feet, slamming him back against the wall. As the Chinese thug's eyes blinked open, the Phantom shoved the muzzle of the automatic against Wong's ribs and clipped:
"I'm taking you for a little ride, Wong. Act sensibly and you'll not be harmed. If you start getting tough, it's going to be too bad."
TOM WONG'S eyes stabbed at the face of the strange Chinaman who held the gun on him. Then he wet his lips.
"Okay, feller. I guess I know who sent you," he said. "You're from the Sun Tsay Tong."
"It doesn't matter who sent me," the Phantom rasped. "Are you coming quietly— or will I leave you here in the alley with a bullet in your heart?"
There was a deadly inflection in the Phantom's voice that convinced Wong that his captor wasn't bluffing. He shrugged his shoulders.
"It's your party, feller," he muttered. "I'll go along."
IT was only a few blocks to the basement apartment on Twenty-third Street. Van knew that he could leave Wong there without fear of anyone discovering him. He shoved the automatic into his pocket, and told the gunman to start moving. He walked at Wong's side, but the muzzle of the gun in his pocket was pressed against the Chinese thug's side as they traversed the blocks to Twenty-third Street.
The Phantom herded his prisoner through the areaway and the rear door, into the apartment. Inside, he made Wong face the wall with his hands behind him. He lashed his prisoner's wrists, made Wong sit down and then secured his ankles. Satisfied that Wong was securely tied, he removed the prisoner's shoes, so that the gangster would be unable to hammer on the floor and attract attention. Tearing a face towel into strips, the Phantom fashioned a gag. Then he stepped back to survey his handiwork.
Wong's black eyes flashed a message of murderous hatred, as the Phantom dragged him across the floor toward a closet in the wall. The closet was big and airy and there was no danger of the prisoner's suffocating. The Phantom propped him against the wall in the closet, slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.
Then he removed his make-up, dressed again in the clothes of Richard Curtis Van Loan and left the apartment. Daylight was breaking in the east when he let himself in at his Park Avenue penthouse home. Wearily he moved up the stairs, for a few hours' sleep, before going to Headquarters to talk with Inspector Crowley.
THE Phantom recognized two of the men in Crowley's office next morning. Randolph Fowler, a big, ruddy-faced millionaire sportsman and race track owner, had backed the flight in which Eric Lane had been killed. With Fowler was Eddie Higgins, his bodyguard, an ex-pug.
The other two men present were strangers. One was tall, slim and extremely dark. The fourth man was a big blond chap with hard, expressionless blue eyes. Crowley introduced them curtly. Van learned that the dark man was Roy Manson and the blond chap was John Twombly.
Crowley had evidently finished his interview, for he asked the Phantom if there were any further questions to be asked.
The Phantom's dark eyes, peering through the slits in his black silk mask, moved quickly over the faces of the three suspects and the bodyguard. He noted with interest their facial expressions. Fowler looked angry and hostile, while Higgins, the bodyguard, was sullen and venomous under the Phantom's scrutiny. Roy Manson's dark eyes had a worried expression that belied the sneering indifference on his swarthy face. Twombly, the blond man, was also angry, but it was a cold, repressed rage that shone in his blue eyes.
The Phantom's eyes went back to Crowley and he shook his head in negation. He had mentioned a couple of points to Crowley the night before that he wanted checked. There was no need for him to interrogate the suspects. Crowley dismissed them with a curt sentence or two, thanking them for coming down.
When they had gone, the inspector's forehead furrowed in a heavy scowl and he ran his thick fingers through his iron-grey hair. His eyes had a puzzled look.
"Did you learn anything from them?" the Phantom asked.
Crowley swore vehemently. When he had blown off steam, he rapidly sketched the evidence against each man for the Phantom.
Randolph Fowler and Luther Lane had been friendly enemies at the track. Each owned high-class racing strings and had been keen competitors in the big stake races. One of Fowler's prize racers had been poisoned and rumor had it that some one from the Lane stable had done the poisoning.
Shortly after that, Fowler had been called to Washington for an investigation by the Senate over the reports that his track at Nelson Park was being operated crookedly. Although nothing had been proved against him, Fowler's reputation as a sportsman and a square gambler had been blackened. The Southerner grew hot-headed and blamed Lane for causing the investigation. Their rivalry grew into active hatred.
CROWLEY, following a lead that the Phantom had given him, had uncovered the fact that Luther Lane had insinuated that Fowler knew something about the death of Eric Lane in the flight which Fowler was backing. The innuendo had caused Fowler to threaten to shoot Lane on sight, if the latter ever dared even to hint that Fowler was concerned in Eric's death. The millionaire sportsman had himself made this damaging admission defiantly to the police inspector, and had challenged Crowley to make what he would of it.
Roy Manson, the dark man, had once served a jail sentence for trying to kill Luther Lane. Manson had inherited a fortune from his father, together with a profitable Oriental rug importing business. But young Manson had given up the importing business and bought into the stock exchange.
He went broke in about a year and most of his money had been lost in bucking Luther Lane in the market.
AFTER he had crashed, Manson took to drinking heavily. One night when he was drunk, he started out to kill the man he blamed for his financial reverses. He was arrested before he got to Lane, and got a five-year sentence.
While he was in prison, an aunt died in China, leaving another fortune. He served a little more than three years, then went abroad immediately after his release. He had stayed in China, where much of his youth had been spent, until his return to this country a few months before.
Twombly, the blond man, had run afoul of Luther Lane in the market also. He had been piling up a fortune through crooked manipulations, fleecing gullible investors. Lane had tripped Twombly up in a crooked deal, then brought charges against the blond man that had resulted in Twombly's losing his seat in the Exchange and narrowly escaping a prison sentence as well. He, also, went abroad for a year, and had come back to take up his shady operating again.
The Phantom's lips pursed in a silent whistle as he digested the information Crowley had sketched against each man.
"It looks as though all three had a motive for killing Lane," he said slowly. "Fowler is hot-headed and hated Lane before Eric's death. Lane's veiled accusation might have stirred him to murder— especially if there were any truth in the insinuation. I believe that was why Luther Lane went to the cemetery. He figured that Fowler hated him enough to commit murder to keep young Lane from winning the fifty-thousand dollar prize. It may be significant that Luther Lane was struck down just as he was about to enter the crypt."
"There might be a lot in that," agreed Crowley. "We'll have to check up on that vault."
"I asked Havens to have a couple of private detectives guard the tomb until we have a chance to investigate there," Van said. Then he went on with his summary:
"Manson looks the type that would foster a grudge for a long time. A man like him would suffer a lot during three years in prison. He must have come out hating Lane."
"He showed that while I was questioning him," Crowley admitted. "Though he claimed he had learned his lesson while he was serving in the gow."
"TWOMBLY had plenty of reason for wanting Lane dead, too," said the Phantom. "I've done a little checking on my own this morning, and I learned that Twombly is promoting a Manchurian mining stock that isn't any too sound. Lane had been doing some investigating concerning that stock. Twombly may have feared that Lane had evidence that would send him to jail, and consequently hired Li-Hung to murder Lane before the evidence could be used against him."
"The blond lad's no angel," Crowley said grimly. "While he was abroad, he was under suspicion by the Federal men. They had an idea that he was hooked up in some smuggling activities— dope and jewels."
They discussed different points for the next half hour. Van had asked Crowley to find out where each of the three men had been the night before, when the murder took place. He had pointed out that alibis wouldn't mean much, because if one of the three had hired Li-Hung to do the killing, he would probably arrange an alibi beforehand. But of the three, only Manson seemed to have a clean-cut alibi. The dark man had been in his hotel room asleep, from eight-thirty in the evening.
Fowler claimed that he had been driving home to his Long Island estate and his car had broken down on a lonely road. It had been some time after midnight before a car came along and picked him up. Twombly had spent the hours from eight to eleven at a moving picture show, then had strolled up Broadway and had returned to his apartment around midnight, a fact which could be confirmed by his Chinese servant.
One point that Crowley had established was that all three men had lived in China, and knew a good deal about Chinese customs. Any one of the three could easily have effected a contact with Li-Hung.
THE Phantom told Crowley of his plan to try to get into Li-Hung's organization and the grizzled inspector wished him luck and offered the full co-operation of his department. There was a sardonic glint in the eyes of the veteran police officer as he told Van that each of the three suspects had expressed a willingness to try to help in solving the mystery that surrounded Lane's death. Twombly, especially, had seemed eager to help, and had hinted that through his acquaintances in the underworld, he might be able to pick up something about Li-Hung that the police would not be able to gather.
Van promised to get in touch with Crowley just as soon as he learned anything definite. He suggested that men be detailed to cover each of the suspects. Then he set about the task of confirming the theory he had— a theory that was so fantastic that he hadn't even mentioned it to Crowley.
VAN went directly to Twenty-third Street from Police Headquarters. With him he brought some food and a container of coffee. Wong was still asleep in the closet when the Phantom opened the door, but the sound snapped the Chinaman awake. His black eyes went wide when he saw the masked face of the Phantom. He showed his yellow teeth in a snarl as the gag was removed.
The Phantom made no attempt to question Wong, knowing that it would be difficult to get any information from the gangster. He untied his prisoner's hands, watched him like a hawk while Wong gobbled the food he had brought. Then he secured him again and herded him back into the closet.
Then the Phantom went to work molding his features into an exact duplicate of the Chinese hoodlum's, even to the scar above Wong's eyebrow. The suit he had worn before was on the same general pattern as Wong's. He selected a special pair of shoes that might prove useful, searched his prisoner's pockets but found nothing on him that would serve as an identification.
He took a final look at his prisoner before he left, and was faintly amused by the expression in Wong's eyes when the Chinese thug looked and saw himself in duplicate. The Phantom's hands ran over the bonds. Wong would be secure for at least twenty-four hours. The Phantom could call Crowley and have Wong released, at the end of that time, if his mission was accomplished. But he hoped to return before then; not even Crowley must know of this apartment if its usefulness were to be maintained.
The Phantom spent most of the afternoon and evening frequenting the various dives and gambling places in Chinatown where he knew that Tom Wong would be apt to go. He was hoping that in the disguise he had so expertly accomplished, he might effect a contact that would lead him to the headquarters of Li-Hung.
HE met many Orientals who spoke to him, but got no inkling as to how the bandit leader could be reached. One Chinaman laughingly referred to a killing that had puzzled the detectives for weeks, intimating that Wong was responsible. Van laughed and admitted the murder.
There were several dance halls in the vicinity of Fourteenth Street that were patronized by Orientals. It was in one of these that a small pock-marked Chinese sidled up and spoke to him in rapid Cantonese. Van's pulse beat faster. He recognized the pock-marked man as one of the thugs who had been standing against the wall when Li-Hung had sentenced the Phantom to death.
"I've been waiting an hour for you," the pock-marked man said. "The master awaits your presence. I am fearful that he will be angered."
"Let him be angered," the Phantom growled with the bluster of Tom Wong. "I had other business that demanded my attention first."
"But not business that means a thousand dollars in the money of the White Ghosts," Pock Face smiled craftily. His scarred face took on a look of avarice.
The Phantom was thinking fast, but measuring his words, lest he betray the fact that he was an impostor. Evidently Wong was not a member of the Li-Hung band; but the evil ruler of the Chinese brigands wanted him for a special job. Wong's gun evidently brought a high price.
"I did not know it was that important," apologized the bogus Wong. "I thought some poor and miserable enemy of Li-Hung was marked for execution. Let us go at once."
He shoved his way through a group of thin-faced, tired-eyed girls who clamored for dances, and made his way back to the check room, where he bought back his stiff straw hat. The little pock-marked man trotted along at his side.
"He will be at the Mott Street Headquarters?" asked the Phantom. "Yes. He awaits us there."
"Li-Hung would do well to change his meeting place," sagely advised the Phantom. "Since the black ghost that the Americans call 'The Phantom' escaped, your organization is in constant danger."
THE pock-marked man heartily damned the Phantom and all of his ancestors. Then he said:
"Li-Hung has sworn by the bones of his venerable ancestors that this Phantom is to die before the dawn of another day. Truly do you speak, oh, Wong. Better to have a thousand of the white devils' police on the trail of Li-Hung than to have this evil spirit with the covered face. But Li-Hung believes that his hated enemy does not know how he was brought into the meeting place; and doubts that he could find his way back through the devious paths we follow in entering."
Wong grumbled an execration that was complimentary to the skill of the Phantom. As they walked, he subtly pumped the pock-faced thug, endeavoring to find out what big plan lay in back of the murder of Luther Lane.
Li-Hung's henchman was frank to admit that the laymen in the murderous gang knew little or nothing of the design of their nefarious leader. Li-Hung made all the plans for their raids; the men carried them into execution, and shared generously in the spoils.
They reached Mott Street. Turning into an iron gate they walked up four stairs, passing along a narrow hall, and through a back room where seven men were around a table engaged in some sort of a card game. Beyond this room was another lined with bunks, and the Phantom knew this was where he had caught the smell of the opium pipes. Two of the bunks were occupied by dreamy-eyed Orientals, as Van and his guide moved through the room.
Their path took a sharp turn to the right after passing through the opium den. They went up a flight of stairs and a heavy door barred their way. The pock-marked man knocked twice, paused, then tapped lightly three times. The door swung open. The Phantom's eyes narrowed on the face of the man who guarded the portal. Then he recognized him as one of the men who had been at the cemetery with Li-Hung.
WHEN they moved through the door, it was like stepping into a different world. Lavish furnishings, many of them priceless heirlooms of Chinese art and culture, decorated the rooms through which they passed to reach the throne room of Li-Hung.
Van found his blood beat increasing, and exultation fired his veins. They were now in the home of the evil monster who ruled the yellow bandits.
A minute more, and he would be face to face with his hated enemy, Li-Hung.
A hard glitter came into the eyes of the Phantom. His fingers unconsciously closed around the butt of the automatic at his belt. A single, swift shot, and the world would be rid of a despicable murderer, a lurking beast who buried himself in the heart of a foreign world, and ravaged the city around at will.
BUT the Phantom knew that, much as he wanted to do so, he could not shoot Li-Hung down. To do so would be much the easier and much the safer method. Killing Li-Hung would not solve the mystery of Luther Lane's death, however, and that was the task that the Phantom had sworn to accomplish. Li-Hung held the key to the murder. So Van was going to gamble with death again, joining the crew of murderers of the man who had sworn to have him killed.
Only the grim set of his jaw and the agate hardness of Dick Van Loan's eyes gave sign of the seriousness of his position. A single slip, a tiny fault in the character of Tom Wong that he was playing, meant that he would be torn to pieces by the cruel mob of Li-Hung.
A moment later the pock-faced man knocked on the panels of a door and Li-Hung's voice chanted: "Enter, honorable servant."
At a nod from the pock-faced man the Phantom turned the knob, and stepped into the room where he had been brought as a blindfolded prisoner. On the carved teakwood throne Li-Hung sat, clad in his ceremonial robes. The minute the leader spoke, the Phantom knew that his gamble was even more desperate than he had reckoned.
"So— my ex-lieutenant has deigned to return to talk with the man who helped him achieve success." Li-Hung's voice was cruel and mocking. "Your thought that you could, single-handed, wrest a fortune from the White Ghosts has not proved successful."
Swift thoughts raced through the Phantom's head. Tom Wong had been a member, a lieutenant in Li-Hung's pirate gang— and had quit because he was dissatisfied with the share of the loot. Van wondered that the scar-faced thug had been permitted to live; then he realized that Wong himself was a celebrity with many satellites— and that perhaps Li-Hung was avoiding a war within the criminal forces of Chinatown's underworld, by ignoring Wong's desertion of the gang.
THE Phantom knew that, deep in his heart, the evil ruler of the underworld must hate Tom Wong for successfully challenging his authority and leadership. In assuming the identity of the scar-faced killer, Van Loan might have walked into a trap that would end in certain death.
His dark eyes were inscrutable as they fixed on the yellow face that leered from the chair on the raised dais. He made his tones just insolent enough to escape being challenging, as he said:
"Your humble servant has no complaint against his lot. If he has prospered less, it is because he would rather be a poor eagle and free, than a well-fed falcon flying at the bidding of even so august a master as thou, honorable Li-Hung."
Li-Hung's lips tightened.
"Your tongue has improved," he rasped, "even if your purse has not fattened."
"Your servant spoke that my purse might be fattened also," the bogus Tom Wong smiled coldly. "It was for that reason I came to you, Li-Hung. Let us forget the mistakes of the past in talking of the success of the future. You sent for me with a purpose in mind, did you not?"
For several seconds Li-Hung's face was blank and expressionless, like a smooth sheet of yellow parchment. Only the eyes seemed alive, and they burned like glowing coals of malignity. When he spoke, the Phantom was startled by the hatred in the leader's voice.
"I have sent for you— to buy your gun— to kill the man I hate most in this world," Li-Hung snarled. "It is said that you have seen the one called the Phantom on three different occasions. I will pay you well to see him once again— through the smoke of a flaming gun that is hurling a bullet into his heart!"
Tom Wong's eyes seemed to widen. The Phantom made his voice soft.
"I have seen him— as others have seen him," he said, "with his white face hidden behind a mask. But I know where he can be found. He goes daily to the Headquarters of the police to consult with them on the murder of Luther Lane."
HIS eyes stabbed at Li-Hung's face as he spoke of Lane's killing. The glowing eyes flamed with savage rage as Li-Hung said:
"The police are fools. They question white men about the killer of Luther Lane. But this Phantom— he thinks differently. He is trying to ferret-out the secret of Li-Hung. That is why he must die, even as the fool Lane died for the same reason."
Van's heart skipped a beat. Then the killing of Luther Lane was not entirely a gesture of revenge, but rather because the millionaire broker would have unearthed some secret at the tomb of his son. The Phantom resolved to make a thorough investigation of the Lane mausoleum at the first opportunity he could find.
His tones were calm and calculating as he asked:
"What will the august one pay in gold to have the Phantom killed?"
"A thousand dollars," Li-Hung snapped quickly. "A thousand dollars in White Ghosts' gold."
The bogus Wong laughed sardonically.
"A thousand dollars— to become the most hunted criminal in the world. Do you not know that every police officer in the country will be turned out to hunt the killer of the Phantom? Even the secret police of Washington will be detailed to hunt such a murderer. And you offer a thousand dollars for such a risk?"
"What do you ask?" Li-Hung's lips were tight and his eyes were malevolent.
"Five thousand dollars— to take a journey to the land of my honorable ancestors," the Phantom said coolly.
Rage and avarice warred in Li-Hung's face. Then he smiled crookedly.
"It shall be so," he said. "When you tell me that this menace to my plans is dead, you shall receive your blood money. And I will personally arrange your departure for our native land."
IT was on the tip of the Phantom's tongue to demand a part payment in advance, but he remembered that Li-Hung's word was reputed to be his bond in the ranks of the underworld.
He bowed formally.
"The Phantom will be killed, worthy Li-Hung," he stated. "If one has to slay him on the very steps of the Headquarters of police— this slinking jackal with the masked face will die under the noses of the police."
Li-Hung stood up, held his hand out at arm's length and rotated his fingers. For a second, the Phantom stared at him blankly, wondering if the evil genius was offering some sort of an Oriental blessing. Then he saw Li-Hung's eyes cloud, and suddenly, the Phantom realized that he had erred— and erred badly.
Li-Hung repeated the motion. From the corner of his eye, the Phantom saw the pock-marked man by the door duplicating the movement of the leader's hand. It was a secret signal of Li-Hung's crew.
"I was lost in thought, planning the death of the Phantom," Van's voice was apologetic as his hand extended and his fingers prescribed a tiny circle. Li-Hung's face cleared, but the cloud of suspicion still shadowed his eyes as the bogus Tom Wong and the pock-faced man went out the door.
HIS guide escorted him to the door leading to the street. Every crook and turn was engraved in the Phantom's mind now. At the exit the pock-marked man uttered the formal words speeding a departing guest. "Walk carefully, my friend." Van thought there was more than the politeness of the Chinese host behind the words. The pock-marked man might be one of Wong's admirers, camouflaging a warning of danger.
"One always walks with care in the shadow of enemies," the Phantom said easily. Then he went down the stairs to the street.
The Phantom's ears were attuned to the shuffle of feet behind him as he moved up the almost deserted street that formed the heart of Chinatown. He was sure that suspicion had entered and lodged in the crafty brain of Li-Hung, despite the imperturbability of the leader's face when he had dismissed the hired gunman.
Without turning his head, Van soon detected the sound of feet that kept pace with his own steps, slowing down when the Phantom slowed, speeding up when Van increased his gait. Van made two turns, and at the second, he thought he picked out the man who was trailing him. He moved halfway down the block, stared in at a store window, and from the corner of his eye saw a husky Chinese come to the corner, stop and light a cigarette.
The Phantom moved swiftly along the narrow, ill smelling streets, apparently bound northward in a hurry to perform some mission. His eyes raked each block he passed, until he found one where the street light had been broken, and deep shadows wrapped the street in semidarkness.
HE turned sharply around the corner. Then his feet marked time, gradually dying to a faint tap, as though fading in the distance. His shoulders hunched, and his eyes were glued on the corner he had just turned. Some ten or fifteen seconds later, the big Chinaman sped around the corner.
Before Li-Hung's trailer could focus his eyes on the dim figure hugging the wall, the Phantom was on him. Short, punishing blows whipped to the big Chinaman's midriff; then as the man's arms lowered to guard his stomach, Van's right smashed to the shadow's jaw. The man staggered back, then charged forward, his hands reaching for the Phantom's throat. Van stepped inside those clutching hands and his iron fists hammered breathtaking blows at the Chinaman's solar plexus.
The big man's arms wrapped around Van, pulling him close in a rib-crushing embrace. The Phantom braced his feet, tried to punch his way out of the clinch. He dared not use the gun at his belt, for the police would be on them in a minute; and as Tom Wong, he would be slated for a long trip up the river.
The husky shadow grunted as one of Van's blows found a vulnerable spot. He tried to jerk away, but Van reached out and fastened his left hand in the lapel of the big man's coat. The Phantom's right fist was cocked for a knockout punch, when the noise of running feet sounded in Van's ears.
The Phantom's head whirled toward the corner. He was set to drop a lethal wallop on the shadow's chin and take to his heels, if the police showed around the corner. But as his head turned, the big Chinaman threw a wild punch that cracked in back of the Phantom's ear.
Van's knees buckled, and he pitched forward against the chest of Li-Hung's gumshoe man. As he did he saw two dark, menacing figures race around the corner. One of them swung a short, stubby weapon from a thong at his wrist.
The Phantom swore beneath his breath. Li-Hung had been smarter than he had realized. He had sent two of his hatchet men to trail the shadow, in case the man he suspected was proven to be an impostor.
He tried to sidestep the blow of the blackjack in the hands of the hatchet man. But the wild punch of the shadow still had him groggy. He heard the swish of the leather sap through the air; then his skull felt as though the Empire State building had dropped on it. Van heard a gleeful, squealing noise from one of the hatchet men. Then everything went blank.
HIS brain was shot with streaks of molten, searing metal that seemed to emanate from the red-hot iron ring that bound his skull, when his eyes opened again. He heard the chatter of voices, and was conscious of a light shining in his eyes.
As his wavering sight finally focused, he saw the evil, grinning face of Li-Hung leering at him. For a second, his dazed brain was puzzled; there was something unfamiliar about the merciless leader of the thugs. Then Van saw that Li-Hung was dressed in occidental clothes, a nicely tailored suit of oxford grey.
THROUGH the black fog that still clouded his brain, the Phantom heard Li-Hung snarl:
"Take him to the torture cell. Let him suffer there until I return twenty-four hours from now. I believe you have done a splendid deed for the organization— for I think this man who pretends to be Wong is our hated foe— the Phantom. Tomorrow night, when I return, I will bring a preparation that will remove the color from his skin if it is not his own color. Then— we shall show this cursed impostor what it means to make fools of Li-Hung and his men."
The door closed behind the big figure of the leader. Cold sweat began to ooze out on the Phantom's brow, as he wondered what particular brand of devilish torture would now be devised for his benefit. He knew that the Chinese were masters of torture, and his blood chilled at the thought of what might await him.
But a faint spark of hope still burned in his heart. He was to be kept alive until the return of Li-Hung.
The Phantom speculated on the business that took the vicious leader away from his headquarters, clad in the clothes of the hated foreigners. It must have been an important mission, indeed, that would make Li-Hung forego the pleasure of seeing his most dangerous enemy, the Phantom, turned over to the torturers.
The room still pitched and swayed before Van Loan's eyes when he was dragged to his feet by two stolid Orientals, and half carried from the room. They took him along a hall, and then down two flights of steep stairs. The second flight, he could tell from the dank smell, led underground. Desperately he longed to make a battle for liberty but he realized fully the utter futility of the move at this time. Even the effort of walking made his brain ache, and kept black spots dancing before his eyes.
A WIDE passageway, walled on either side with damp stones, extended from the foot of the second flight of stairs. The passageway ended at a massive oak door that was reinforced with heavy bands of steel. One of his guards took a key from his pocket and opened the door.
The rush of air from the cell room— for such the Phantom took it to be— was foul and dank, like the air in a musty swamp.
Inside the cell, in the dim light that came in from the corridor, Van could see nothing but four grim walls. He wondered where the torture instruments were concealed; then as his eye fastened on a hook about eight feet from the floor, with a thin cord looped around it, the grim realization of the particular method of torture Li-Hung had prescribed struck him with blood-curdling force.
He tried to flatten his feet on the damp cement floor, heaving his shoulders in an effort to break loose from the grasp of his captors. A blinding pain nearly lifted the top of his skull, but he fought it back as he strained in the grasp of the two thugs.
Then he heard a soft, sibilant voice at his elbow.
"Be quiet, fool, or I will slit your ugly throat."
Something sharp prodded against his ribs, convincing the Phantom that the Chinaman's threat was no idle one. The knife point dug deeper and the Phantom resigned himself to a necessary acceptance of his fate.
The situation seemed hopeless.
He was dragged to the wall, beneath the hook, and despite his feeble, helpless struggles, one end of the thin cord was looped tight around his left thumb. Facing the wall, he was prodded with the knife until his chest was against the bricks.
The other guard pulled on the cord, until the Phantom's left arm was extended upward to its full length. Still the brutal tightening of the cord continued, until it seemed that his thumb would be torn from its socket. He rose straining on his toes to ease the terrible pain.
The knife of the second thug pressed against the back of his neck, as the first guard jerked the Phantom's right arm erect, slipped a noose over his right thumb and pulled it tight. He was a prisoner, bound by a thin cord, not much thicker than a violin string, but twice as strong.
THE guards stepped back, and Van heard one say:
"Shall we take off the shoes of this dog?"
"It will make the torture sweeter if they are left on," the other said. "Sharp teeth will soon gnaw through the leather, eating the grease we put on."
He felt one of them at his feet and dropped his eyes. One of the Chinese was rubbing some sort of grease from a metal box around the toes of his shoes. He tried to lash out with his feet, but the weight of his body on the thin cord nearly jerked his thumbs out.
A few seconds later, he heard the door slam shut and the key grating in the lock from the outside. With the shutting of the door his cell was pitch black.
The Phantom's brain was traveling in futile circles. He could find no way to relieve the excruciating pain. By standing on the tips of his toes, he could obtain momentary relief, but after he had stood that way for a few minutes, the muscles of his legs became knotted and cramped and felt as though red-hot needles were driving into every muscle. When he lowered his heels, the cord pulled at his aching thumbs with the force of the whole weight of his body.
Waves of pain flooded the Phantom's brain. Deeply and vehemently he cursed the fiendish mind that had conceived such a harrowing method of punishment. Death would be a relief after the twenty-four hours of such pain. In desperation, he jerked with his thumbs, tried to snap the cord. But the thin material only bit deeper into his flesh, and the pain made him sick to his stomach.
HE was denied even the merciful relief of unconsciousness, for when it seemed that he could endure the agony no longer and blackness crept into his brain, his body would sag. Then the torturing pain would drive the numbness from his brain and would force him erect on his toes again.
Stiffened on his toes, the Phantom thought he heard a rustling sound; Undoubtedly he felt something brush against his feet. He kicked— and a vicious squeal told him that hanging by his thumbs was only part of the torture that Li-Hung's cruel brain had devised. The cell was now infested with starved rats!
He felt sharp teeth gnawing at the leather in his shoes. Cold drops of perspiration trickled down his spine. He perceived the fiendish ingenuity of the slant-eyed murderer. The preparation smeared on his shoes was some sort of food that attracted the rodents. They would gnaw their way through the leather— then their sharp teeth would reach the flesh of his feet. From that point onward, the end was not difficult to foretell.
THE Phantom lashed out with his toes, and the cord around his thumbs all but pulled his arms out of their sockets. But for a few seconds the little beasts retreated.
Desperation made the Phantom's brain click fast. He struggled with the cords at his thumbs. If only there were some way that he could reach one of them. But each effort seemed to drive the silken threads deeper into the flesh.
Then he had an idea, and steeled his nerves to put his plan into execution. He balanced himself on his left toe and brought his right foot against the sole of his left shoe. The pain was excruciating, but he gritted his teeth, and wedging the heel of his right foot under the instep of his left shoe, he started to pull.
The shoes he wore were specially constructed, made after a model worn by the late Harry Houdini, the master escape artist. Apparently fitted with regulation eyelets and laces, there were flexible bands across the vamp and uppers that permitted the shoes to be slipped off with a certain amount of pressure. The Phantom had studied Houdini's methods, and had learned that the master magician used these special shoes in one of his rope escapes.
It took the Phantom about three minutes to work the shoe from his foot, but each of those minutes seemed hours long, under the terrific pull of the cord at his thumbs; finally he accomplished the task. He worked the shoe against the wall and stood on it. It gave him a footrest more than an inch in height, and relieved the tension on his aching thumbs to a marked degree.
He paused for a minute, driving the rats away from his unprotected heel with the other shoe. When the sharp pains in his thumbs and arms had subsided to dull, torturing aches, he went to work on the other shoe.
It was infinitely more difficult to remove. He had to balance his weight on the toes of his stockinged foot, working at the heel of his shoe with the instep that had no protecting layer of leather. Once or twice he slipped, and his thumbs paid a terrific penalty for these misses. He felt the cord biting at the bones in his thumbs as he finally worked out of the second shoe.
Now he manipulated his feet, piling the shoes one on top of the other. He had to fight off the snarling, savage beasts while he worked. Minutes dragged by like hours as he performed his awkward task. At last he accomplished it, and when he stood on top of the two shoes, he had enough slack so that he could reach the knotted loop of one thumb with the fingers of the other hand.
BLOOD flowed from the lacerated flesh as he probed with his nails, reaching for the cord that was buried in raw flesh. His nails fastened around it and he worked it loose over the end of his thumb. The other loop was worked off quickly, and the Phantom was free!
He slipped on his shoes, then stood against the wall, mopping his brow, waiting for the muscles in his calves and thighs to flex out of their rigid cramps. Rats still scurried around his feet, but he was free to smash them now.
His fingers probed at the clothing around his belt. He breathed a sigh of relief as he touched the flat makeup kit strapped around his waist. His captors had not discovered that.
He groped until he found a packet of matches there; struck one and held it out. The rats squealed and ran from the flame. He saw them scamper madly for a corner of the cell, and followed them with the burning match. They scurried through a broken hole in the wall. He could see their gleaming eyes peering at him when the match burned out.
VAN walked over to the door, and examined its surface. Then he swore softly. The lock had not been mortised through the thick boards. The inside of the door was firm and smooth, unbroken by a keyhole. No chance to use one of his tools to pick that lock except from the outside.
Some of the more daring rats were coming through the hole again. Van turned, watched them in the flickering light of the match. He moved toward them, they scurried back. Their retreat gave him an idea. He dropped to his knees in front of the broken spot, wasted two precious matches in examining the hole. Then a grim smile twisted his lips.
Given time enough, before his torturers returned to check up on their victim, he'd work his way clear of Li-Hung's torture cell!
The problem of getting light to work by— and keeping the rats back— stumped him for a few minutes. He solved it by tearing the cotton wadding from the lining of his necktie, rubbing it through with the contents of a tube of grease paint from his make-up kit, that he had prepared himself. The paint contained a heavy mixture of lanolin and alcohol which he hoped would be inflammable. He twisted the wadding into a long fuse, and lighted one end. It burned slowly, but with a brilliant light.
With a thin saw blade from his belt kit, and a slender pick of steel, he went to work. Savagely he hacked and tore at the crumbling mortar around one of the big stones. His fingers were raw and bleeding, his knuckles scraped pulpy and his wrists cut and slashed from the jagged sectors of the stones. But after an hour of intensive effort, he was able to pull one of the stones into the cell, adding an eighteen-inch opening to the broken spot where the rats had made their entry.
Pushing his improvised torch through the opening, Van fell on his stomach to the floor and twisted, scraped and wriggled his way through the opening. He could feel the skin scraping from his shoulders, but he managed to squeeze the upper half of his body through. Every inch of his flesh seemed bruised and sore when he finally dragged his feet through the aperture.
Only an inch or two of his torch remained. He saw that he was in another cellar, but this time he could see stairs leading upward. The rats pelted across the floor before his light, diving out of sight into a drain pipe that opened in the floor in a far corner.
The Phantom reached the bottom of the stairs, shielded his spluttering torch and with his eyes followed the course of the steps until they ended in boards above. A trap door covered the head of the stairs.
Step by step he inched his way upward, making sure that no creaking board betrayed his progress to a lurking foe in the room above the stairs. He reached the third stair from the top and crouched there, trying to figure out a plan of action. His hands lifted, pressed against the boards and shoved. He felt the door lift under the pressure.
At least that much was in his favor— the trap door wasn't bolted from above.
The Phantom sat quiet for two or three minutes, waiting for some of his splendid vitality and strength to flow back into his weary, bruised muscles. He could figure no way out, except to make a rush for freedom. If he stayed below, he would eventually be slaughtered like a captured beast. Better to risk whatever lurked above. There, at least, lay a possible chance for freedom.
HE hitched his crouched body up another step, bent almost double. His palms pressed flat against the boards, and his whole body went into the surge that threw the trap door back. Like a jack-in-the-box he followed the door, springing the opening, and hitting the floor beyond the orifice on his hands and knees.
A startled Chinaman spilled out of a chair just beyond the trap. Before the man could regain his balance, the Phantom was on him.
Vise-like fingers clutched the Oriental's throat, choking him into submission before he could utter a cry of warning.
As the Phantom's powerful wrists and hands pinned the man to the floor, his eyes were darting around the room, seeking other foes. But the man in his grasp was the sole occupant of the room. Van's muscles contracted, his fingers dug deeper into the yellow flesh, as he noted the piles of boxes and bales that filled the room. He had crashed into the storehouse of Li-Hung's mob, a room filled with stolen silks, woolens and other contraband that had been lifted from rifled warehouses in the city.
THE struggling Chinaman was clutching for the lapel of his coat, while his eyes rolled wildly in his head. Van's fingers tightened. He jerked the man's head up and banged his skull against the floor. The watchman groaned and then went limp. The Phantom slammed the head against the floor again for good measure, then climbed upright and prodded the insensible man with his foot.
Satisfied that the guard of the storeroom was not feigning unconsciousness, he ran an exploring hand under the man's coat, lifted the snub-nosed automatic from his shoulder holster and then moved toward the door at the other end of the room. As he went through the aisle between the piles of stolen merchandise, Van's eyes were busy, picking out some of the identifying marks on bales and boxes. Li-Hung's mob had taken in some valuable loot.
He paused for a minute at the door, took off his coat and brushed away the dirt and powdered cement that clung from his wriggling escape from the torture cell. He saw a hat on a hook near the door and, with a grimace of disgust, pulled it down on the sleek black locks that were part of his Tom Wong make-up. The hat, at any rate, shielded his face.
His sore thumb throbbed as it closed over the butt of the automatic that he had taken from the unconscious guard. Van shoved the gun in his pocket, and his finger was curled around the trigger when he slowly opened the door.
His whole aching body thrilled with the urge to hunt out the murderous assassins who had hung him up by the thumbs in the torture cell. He wanted a chance to meet them, to avenge in part some of the excruciating pain he had undergone.
But Li-Hung was the man he wanted— and Li-Hung was away from the den of cutthroats, bound on some errand of evil. Something big— something that would break within the next twenty-four hours. It was Li-Hung who was the important factor in the murder mystery. The Phantom must forego his own revenge until the king of these slant-eyed thugs was safe in the hands of the law.
HE opened the door and stepped out into the hall that led below the conference room of Li-Hung. With an insolent swagger of his shoulders, as befitted Tom Wong, the Phantom pushed through the opium den and past the room of the gamblers. His eye was on every face in the room, and his finger close on the trigger. For if either of the two men who had dragged him to the cell was among the gamblers, the Phantom was prepared to shoot before any accusations could be uttered. The Fates were with him. Two or three of the men uttered monosyllabic greetings to the bogus Wong. The others were too intent on their cards to heed his passing. He walked safely through the room, and down the stairs to the door that led out onto Mott Street.
Five minutes later he was in a cab, headed for his rendezvous on Twenty-third Street. Once again, he had escaped from the clutches of Li-Hung. The battleground would move further north— for Li-Hung was now wearing American clothes and probably was not pursuing any evil machinations in Chinatown. Van felt that he would pick up the trail of the emperor of evil much further uptown.
FOLLOWING his promise, the Phantom went to Headquarters early the next morning. Crowley had picked up Tom Wong in accordance with the Phantom's directions, the previous night, and was holding the Chinese gangster a prisoner. Now he told Van that he had been unable to break down the alibis of the three suspects.
Fowler's family was in Europe and his gardener and housekeeper were the only servants. Since neither of the two slept at the house, it was impossible to corroborate Fowler's story that he had returned home shortly after midnight on the night of the murder.
The Phantom asked whether the detectives who were trailing the suspects had learned anything of importance. Crowley said that Twombly had spent most of the day at his downtown office. He had been trailed to a Chinese restaurant, where he had had dinner with a hard-looking Chinaman. Later they were joined by Charley Young, the owner of the restaurant. Then Twombly had given his shadow the slip, by going into Charley Young's office and leaving by the rear stairs.
The shadow had returned to Twombly's office building and found the office lighted. A young fellow named Wilson, who said he was Twombly's secretary, was working on some stock certificates. Wilson claimed that he did not know where Twombly could be found, but the detective thought he might be lying for the man had acted scared and nervous.
The Phantom's eyes lighted at this bit of information and he marked the secretary for investigation.
The report on Manson was colorless. He had been in his hotel room all day and had gone to a picture show at night. His shadow had picked him up after the show and had tailed him back to his hotel room shortly after eleven. Manson hadn't left his room since, or at least, he had not shown himself in the hotel lobby.
"Have you been able to dig up anything in Lane's past history that points to Chinese enemies?" asked the Phantom.
"Not a thing," Crowley answered. "One of the three men we're tailing must have hired Li-Hung. The medical examiner hasn't figured yet how Lane got poisoned. It was an Oriental poison, quite rare in this country. There's nothing to show how Lane got it. He had a scratch on his finger and we figured he might have absorbed the poison by touching the lock with his scratched finger. But we couldn't find any trace of poison on the lock."
THE Phantom believed that he had the solution of that problem, but he wanted a little additional proof before telling Crowley about it.
He talked with Crowley for a few minutes more, asking him about where the suspects lived, and checked with the inspector on a few other details. Then he left Headquarters and headed directly for the hotel where Roy Manson lived.
Crowley had informed him that Manson's room was on the eighth floor. The Phantom stepped into the elevator, rode to the eighth and turned down the corridor, following the numbers to 852, which was Manson's room number.
Just as he reached a turn in the corridor, he heard feet scuffling against the carpet. He had removed his mask before entering the hotel. Figuring that Manson might be coming toward the corner, the Phantom turned toward a door at his left, and his back was to the hall as a man rounded the corner. The Phantom caught a glimpse of the man from the corner of his eye. Then his head bent as if he were shoving a key in the lock of the door he was facing. The man went past Van Loan without a glance, then vanished from sight around an angle in the hall.
The Phantom whistled softly. The man who had just passed was the pock-faced Chinese thug who had guided him, in his disguise of Tom Wong, to Li-Hung's meeting place!
VAN LOAN'S hand slipped into his pocket, and a second later the black silk mask covered the upper part of his face. He moved swiftly down the hall to Room 852, and his knuckles tapped against the panel. His hand dropped to his coat pocket, and his fingers curled around the butt of his automatic, as he heard footsteps moving across the carpet inside.
The door swung open, and Manson's dark eyes went wide as they saw the masked figure. For a second his face showed rapidly conflicting emotions. Surprise, fear and then anger registered in quick succession. Then agitatedly he started to slam the door shut.
But the Phantom's foot blocked the move.
Van's shoulder shoved against the panels of the door, slowly pushing it open. Manson blocked the entrance, snarled in a surly voice:
"Have you got a search warrant? You can't bust in here like this."
"Do I need a search warrant to ask you a few questions?" the Phantom asked levelly. "You act as though you had something to hide."
For a few seconds Manson stared at him hostilely. Then he moved back from the door.
THE Phantom stepped into the room. His eyes went around in a quick searching glance, taking in everything in sight, from the white gold and platinum watch on the dresser to the tan cordovan shoes under the bed.
"What is it you want to know?" Manson asked sharply. "It's bad enough having the cops stick a tail on me, to trail me everywhere I go, without having you camping on my very doorstep. Ask your questions, and then get out of here."
"Then you knew that a shadow trailed you to the theatre last night?"
"You don't think I spent three years in stir without being able to learn how to pick up a shadow, do you?" Manson asked spitefully.
"That's how you learned how to shake them, too," the Phantom said softly. "You were able to ditch your shadow from nine-thirty to eleven last night, weren't you?"
"I could have— but I didn't bother to," Manson smiled cryptically. "I had no place to go, so I sat through the picture."
"Who was the Chinaman who just came out of here?" the Phantom asked suddenly.
Manson's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, then closed quickly.
"It was a man sent to me by a friend of my father's," he said in a flat, level tone. "A Chinese friend who thought I was still in the Oriental rug business. He sent this Chinaman to me for a job."
The Phantom's eyes were probing, but his face was blank and expressionless. His voice was soft again as he said:
"He wouldn't be a good man to hire, Manson— even if you were still in the importing business."
"Why not? He was recommended highly."
"Because he has a police record— and because he's a member of Li-Hung's organization!"
Dick Van Loan's agate eyes were hard on Manson's swarthy face. He saw the pupils of the dark man's eyes dilate, then narrow to pin points.
"The devil you say," Manson exploded. "I didn't know that. He brought a letter of recommendation. It's in Cantonese, so it doesn't mean anything to you— but here it is." Mason picked up a thin strip of paper, and held it before the Phantom. Without seeming to do so, Van Loan's eyes ran up the columns of symbols. His face looked blank as he smiled thinly, and said:
"You couldn't prove it by me, Manson. I recognized that Chinaman, and thought you ought to be tipped off— in case you didn't know who he was."
THERE was a baffled expression in Manson's eyes, as he stared at the Phantom. Then dark shadows of anger showed in their depths. He leaned forward in his chair.
"Was that guy," he asked sharply, "concerned in the murder of Luther Lane?"
The question took the Phantom by surprise. But his voice was level as he replied:
"I don't know. Why do you ask?"
"Because I think someone tried to frame me— by sending that man to my room. If I had stopped to think, I'd have known it was a plant. Everyone in the city knew— knew about my going to jail, and that I wasn't in the importing business. Someone who knew the police had a man covering me sent that man here, hoping that the detective on the job would spot him— and figure that I was running with a crooked mob."
The Phantom's brows met in a frown under the mask. The man's voice sounded sincere. There might be some truth in what he said. Li-Hung, himself, might be trying to frame Manson.
"There may be a lot of truth in what you say," the Phantom said. "If you're innocent— you've got nothing to worry about."
"How would you like it if your footsteps were constantly dogged by the cops— on account of a fool play you once made?" Manson's tones were bitter, and the sullen, vengeful look returned to his eyes. "Then something like this hops up. Naturally, you'd be scared that the police would hang the killing on you. I've got plenty of reason for going haywire."
The Phantom left him a few minutes later. In the hall, waiting for the elevator, he slipped the mask into his pocket. There was a deep cleft in his forehead as he rode down in the elevator.
THOSE Chinese characters had transcribed a letter of introduction— but there had also been an expression of regret because the writer had been unable to reach Manson by phone two evenings before. And that was the night that Luther Lane had been killed— also the night that Manson had said he went to bed at eight-thirty.
Van stopped at the desk on his way out. His voice was raspy as he spoke to the clerk.
"What kind of telephone service have you got here?" he demanded irritably. "Night before last I tried to get Manson on the phone a half dozen times, between eight-thirty and ten, on a very important business matter. Your operator kept reporting that he didn't answer. I've just been talking with Manson and he insists that he was in his room all night."
THE man at the desk was impressed by the expensively tailored clothes and the distinguished appearance of the Phantom. He got red and flustered.
"Just a minute, sir," he objected. "We keep a record of all calls." He disappeared from sight and returned a few seconds later.
"There's some mistake, sir. We have a record of two calls for Mr. Manson during the hours you mentioned, and his room didn't answer either call."
"He must be a darned sound sleeper then," grumbled the Phantom. He thanked the clerk and went out, with the frown on his forehead deepening.
There was something fishy about Manson. Was he hooked up with Li-Hung? Or was his story about the pock-marked thug looking for a job on the level? Manson evidently read Chinese perfectly and probably spoke the language fluently. Van decided to telephone Crowley and advise him that Manson's alibi was full of holes and to suggest that the dark-faced suspect be kept under closer surveillance.
He called Headquarters and learned that Crowley had been trying to locate him. John Twombly had telephoned, saying that he had some important information concerning Li-Hung and that he wanted to see the Phantom right away. Van said that he would go right over to Twombly's apartment.
The Phantom flagged a cab and rode to the apartment hotel on the West Side, near the park, where Twombly lived. A short, leathery-faced Chinese boy answered his ring at the door. The Phantom asked for Twombly and the long Oriental eyes slitted as the servant said: "Mistee Twombly asleep. No can see now."
"He's expecting me," the Phantom said coldly. "Tell him that the Phantom is here."
THE house boy's voice grew shrill as he mouthed a protest. Then Van heard Twombly speak from another room; heard him address his servant in perfect Cantonese.
"Who is there, Sing Lee?" he asked. "Who wishes to see me?" The Phantom's eyes hardened at the sound of Twombly's voice. His brow wrinkled beneath the silk mask. Twombly spoke the Chinese language like an expert. Something clicked in the back of the Phantom's brain.
Then the Chinese boy shrilled: "Man call himself Phantom want to see you. Man with face masked." Twombly swore good-naturedly at the boy. The Phantom heard slippered feet scuffing against the carpet. Then the blond man smiled at Van from the doorway and said: "I didn't expect to see you so soon. Crowley said he didn't know where he could get in touch with you. Won't you come in?"
He led the way into a tastefully furnished living room. As they stepped through the door, the Phantom saw a young man fumbling with the cover of a small silver box that looked like a jewel case. A similar box stood on the table.
Twombly spoke to the young man, said curtly:
"That's all for now, Wilson. I'll finish that business in a little while." The Phantom's eyes flicked across the weak face of Twombly's secretary. Wilson seemed to be hypnotized by the sight of the man in the black silk mask. He stood motionless, staring fascinatingly at the Phantom.
"I said you could go, Wilson," Twombly said sharply.
"Yes, sir," the secretary stammered. "Going right now, sir."
He reached quickly for the two silver boxes. His hand shook as he picked them up. One of the boxes slipped from his hands, and as it struck on the table the lid flew open.
A glittering shower of emeralds and diamonds spread on the damask table runner.
The Phantom's eyes narrowed on the magnificent jewels. Twombly must be a connoisseur in gems, for some of the stones that Wilson hurriedly swept back in the case were perfect stones, from the quick glance Van got. Swift thoughts shuttled through his brain. He recalled the rumor that Twombly had been suspected of being a smuggler. Evidently he and Wilson had been discussing the gems, and the secretary had not been clever enough to conceal them when the Phantom had been announced. The Phantom's suspicion that the jewels were "hot" deepened as Twombly swore savagely and sapped:
"You clumsy lout! I ought to murder you."
The secretary's face got crimson. He snatched up the cases and literally fled from the room.
The sight of the gems had started vague thoughts flickering in the Phantom's mind. There was something else concerning jewels that stirred his memory— something that was definitely tied up with the Lane murder case.
He groped mentally, then it clicked. It was his statement to Luther Lane at the cemetery, when he had told Lane about the battle for the crown jewels of the Empress Quon Shang, that had been raging in the district where Eric Lane had died. The thought reminded the Phantom of the fact that he had not carried out his plan to visit the tomb of Eric Lane. He'd have to do that right away.
HE looked up from the table and found Twombly studying him with inscrutable eyes. Twombly motioned the Phantom to an easy chair and offered to mix him a drink. The Phantom declined but took the cigarette that the blond man offered.
"I'm glad you came up," Twombly said. "I think I've got some information that might be of service to you. You know, I have a lot of connections in Chinatown."
"Like the one you had dinner with last night," the Phantom said levelly.
For a minute Twombly's eyes looked blank. There was a soft, almost taunting quality to his voice when he finally spoke.
"So Crowley's shadow admitted that he lost me, did he?" he said. "That was the reason I slipped out on him. I wanted to show Crowley that I knew I was being tailed, but that it didn't mean much to me. Besides, I didn't think it was very sporting of the inspector, especially as I was trying to help you fellows out."
"Trailing a murderer is no sporting event, Twombly," the Phantom said evenly. "It's a hard, and usually a thankless, task. Every man who has a possible reason for wanting to kill Lane is being tailed, as a matter of routine. There's nothing personal about it. But I'm glad to learn that you are interested enough to want to help us."
SOME hidden emotion flickered in the man's blue eyes. Van couldn't tell whether or not Twombly was angry at his blunt statement that he was still under suspicion.
Twombly tapped a cigarette on the edge of the table, lighted it with a patent lighter and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. Then, calmly, he tossed a verbal bomb.
"I think," he said slowly, "I know where you can find Li-Hung!"
The Phantom stiffened in his chair. His dark eyes raked the face of the man across the table, searching for any faint indication that Twombly was lying.
But the blond man's eyes met his probing glance steadily.
The Phantom started to speak, but was interrupted by a loud, insistent ringing at the door. Twombly swore under his breath and yelled for the servant to answer the ring. Sing Lee chattered something unintelligible from a room along the hall. Twombly's caller leaned on the bell again, longer and more insistently. Wilson's head showed in the door of an adjoining room. He looked inquiringly at his employer.
"Will I answer it, Mr. Twombly?" he asked.
Twombly nodded but as the secretary started for the door, the slithering footsteps of Sing Lee sounded along the hall.
"I guess Sing is going," Twombly said.
The door opened out in the hall, then the servant's voice rose in a loud wail. Fear and anger showed in the shrill protest of Sing Lee. The Phantom knew that Sing was trying to keep someone from coming in. A hard light showed in the Phantom's eyes as they moved to Twombly's face. The thought flashed through his mind that he might have walked into a trap.
The Phantom's hand dropped to his lap, and his fingers edged toward the flat automatic clipped inside of his waistband. But Twombly's expression was one of surprise and startled amazement.
WILSON, the secretary, had started out of the room again, but he halted flatfooted, as a scream emanated from the lips of the Chinese servant in the hall. For a second after the scream there was silence; then the sound of a falling body came to their ears.
"What the devil is going on out there?" rasped Twombly. He sprang from his chair and started toward the hall. He took three steps and then he froze in his tracks.
Two Chinamen stood in the door. One of them snuggled a tommy gun against his hip, and the muzzle moved slowly back and forth, covering the three inmates of the room. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and two other yellow faces showed behind the two in the doorway.
Van's heart skipped a beat. One of the men in the hall was the pockmarked thug from Li-Hung's gang!
VAN LOAN'S eyes jerked from the menacing figures in the doorway and riveted on Twombly's face. The stupefaction had faded from the face of the blond man now, and an expression of anger and fear showed in its place. He looked at the Phantom.
"I'll find out what they want," he said. "I talk Chinese."
"You don't need to ask them, Twombly," Van's voice was brittle. "I'm not so dumb that I don't know when I've walked into a trap. I looked for something like this, when I got your message, but I didn't think you needed a whole mob to put me on the spot."
"Don't be a damned fool," Twombly grated. "I didn't lay a trap for you. These hoods are all strangers to me. We don't know yet that they are gunning for you. Perhaps I'm the one they're after."
The Chinaman with the gun spoke slowly, as though choosing his words with exceeding care.
"Li-Hung has sent us for the man with the mask," he said. "He is to come with us— alive or dead." Twombly's face got pale and there was an inquiry in his eyes as he stared at the Phantom. The blond man's expression was plain. He was asking Van if he wanted to make a fight of it.
Black despair clutched at the Phantom's heart as he stared at the man with the sub-machine-gun. He knew what would be his fate if he fell into the hands of Li-Hung again, he had twice outwitted the evil ruler of the Chinese brigands, and Li-Hung would not be satisfied with an easy death for the man who had repeatedly been successful in escaping the death penalty that had been decreed. His fate this time would be worse than death. Li-Hung would want to kill him by inches.
The palms of the Phantom's hands grew moist as he rapidly figured his chances. He might get the man with the machine-gun, though the possibility was slight, for the Chinese torpedo had his finger on the trigger, ready to let loose a lethal spray of bullets at the first sign of resistance.
Even if Van succeeded in getting the machine-gunner, each of the other three Chinese clutched automatics in their yellow, clawlike hands. There didn't appear to be a chance in a thousand of battling through against odds like that.
The man with the machine-gun slid through the door and took up a position on the left of the opening. His companion slithered to a spot on the other side. Their gleaming eyes were fixed on the masked face of the Phantom.
The pock-marked man spoke from the hall. His voice was ugly with hatred.
"Are you coming out quietly?" he demanded. "Or do you die here?"
His voice carried a note of suppressed desire— the lust to kill. It sounded as though he hoped that the Phantom would refuse, so that the deadly tommy-gun could chatter its message of death.
TWOMBLEY'S face went w hite and his eyes were like chips of blue steel.
"You won't get away with this, you yellow dogs," he snarled. "I've got connections in Chinatown. I'll hunt down every last one of you, if anything happens to this man who is my guest."
"You talk big," sneered the pock-faced man. "But it is only talk. For you are to come along with the masked one. You have been too curious about Li-Hung. It may be that you have learned too much'. We will take you— and the white-faced dog who cringes against the wall. All of you will die."
For the minute, the Phantom had forgotten about the badly frightened secretary. Wilson was flattened against the wall. His teeth chattered and his knees were trembling, as his frightened eyes took in the menacing figures around the door. As the pock-marked man pronounced his death sentence, Wilson's lips parted and he shrieked wildly: "No— no— you can't kill me. I haven't told anything—"
HIS hands lifted, perhaps in a gesture of supplication. The man with the machine-gun seemed to misinterpret the movement. Evidently he believed that the fear-crazed secretary was reaching for a gun.
The muzzle of the automatic swung toward the wall, and the room was filled with the deafening roar as the Chinaman's finger squeezed against the trigger. Wilson's scream cut through the staccato blast of the machine-gun. From the corner of his eye, the Phantom saw the secretary go down as though a giant hand had swept him from his feet. He caught a flash of Twombly leaving his chair, diving toward the floor, clutching at the lapel of his coat.
All of these things the Phantom saw, as he flashed into motion himself. His keen eye had caught the first movement of the muzzle of the tommy-gun as it swerved to cover Wilson.
With the movement of the gun, the Phantom had hurled himself sideways out of the chair. His right hand had flashed to the automatic at his belt, while his left hand fastened on the edge of the heavy living room table.
He blazed a shot at the man inside the door, saw him pitch forward on his face. The pock-marked man was moving toward the door, but the Phantom had the big table half turned now. Van whipped behind the partial protection of the tilted table and drove the pock-faced man out of sight around the door frame with a shot that just missed the thug's temple.
THEN he heaved the table over, crashing it on its side, just in front of the spot where Twombly was sprawled on the floor. The table dropped at the same split second that the man with the tommy-gun whirled to cover Twombly with his clattering typewriter.
Twombly's head snapped up, but a rain of bullets against the upturned face of the table made him duck hastily. The Phantom had dived as the table tipped, and was now flat on his stomach, peering around the barrier's edge.
A bullet splintered the wood in front of his face, and Van's answering shot sent the fourth Chinaman, who had edged toward the door, reeling back against the wall. Another staccato blast from the submachine-gun crashed against his ear drums. Then there was a sudden silence, and as the Phantom's head whisked to the edge of the table, he saw the two Chinamen racing away from the door. The pock-faced man and the man with the machine-gun were beating a swift retreat, evidently afraid that the shooting would bring the police.
The Phantom leaped to his feet and started to race after them. But he halted for a second as he saw Twombly clutching at his shoulder. Blood was trickling down beneath the blond man's fingers, and his eyes blazed furiously.
"Where are you hit?" the Phantom asked. "Anything serious?"
"Just a scratch," Twombly; said. "Don't mind me— go get those murdering devils. I'll see if anything can be done for Wilson."
The door in the hall opened and slammed shut as Twombly spoke. The Phantom raced along the hall and jerked the door open. He heard the sound of racing feet, ascending the stairs further down the corridor.
With his automatic swinging free in his right hand, he plunged in pursuit of the fleeing murderers. Doors flew open along the hall as he took the steps in long, swift strides. At the head of the flight of stairs he lost valuable seconds, pushing through a group of excited women who had gathered at the foot of the next flight.
The two Chinamen were out of sight as he rounded the corner on the landing of the fifth floor. The hotel was six stories high, and the men he pursued must have gained the roof by now.
As the Phantom raced up the last flight, he was confronted by a closed door. He knew that if he plunged ahead, his body would make a perfect target, but that thought failed to deter him. His shoulder crashed against the door as his left hand reached for the knob. Then he cursed beneath his breath, dropped to his knees and tried to peer through the keyhole.
HE saw what had happened. The fleeing gunmen had snatched the key from the inside of the lock and had locked the door on the outside. Van knew that he could twist the key in the lock with the long-nosed pliers he carried in the make-up packet that he wore strapped around his waist. But by the time he had accomplished the task, the killers would have jumped to one of the adjoining roofs and disappeared from sight through one of the nearby buildings.
There might be a chance that the police would pick them up as they reached the street. He turned and raced down to the top floor. There was an elevator there with the door wedged open, while the gaping operator stood rooted at the stairs. The Phantom dove into the car and rasped:
"Take me down in a hurry."
The boy gulped once or twice, then slammed the door shut in the faces of three wild-eyed women who stared at the masked Phantom with awe and curiosity in their startled faces. The car shot down like a rocket. The operator checked it at the main floor with a jerk that almost threw the Phantom from his feet.
The lobby of the hotel was in a turmoil as the masked figure plunged out of the elevator car and raced toward the door. Two blue-coated figures were coming in. They shoved the crowd back around the door to let the Phantom reach the sidewalk. Van's eyes raked up and down the street.
He spotted another group of people two doors down, gathered around a radio patrol car, and he ran swiftly in that direction. He shoved through the crowd, and saw an officer questioning a man in overalls and a jumper.
THE officer looked up, saw the Phantom and his hand snapped in a salute.
"I'm afraid they made a clean getaway," he announced. "This man is the janitor of the building where they came down. They drove him up the stairs when they reached the basement. He says they went out through the basement door, cut through the alley in back of the building and that there was a fast getaway car waiting for them there. Any idea who they were? The Swede here insists that they were Chinamen."
"He's right," the Phantom rasped. "Get to the nearest patrol box. Tell Inspector Crowley that four of Li-Hung's thugs shot up John Twombly's apartment, and killed his secretary. Two of them escaped in a car. Have all patrol cars notified. They may pick up the car with the two Chinese. Send the morgue wagon to pick up two dead Chinamen up in Twombly's apartment in the Framingham Hotel."
The radio cop saluted again and ran back to his car to carry out the Phantom's orders. Then Van turned on his heels and went back to Twombly's hotel.
HIS face was somber as he rode the elevator to Twombly's floor. The two uniformed policemen had gone up after the Phantom had raced for the sidewalk.
Twombly's face was white and strained as the Phantom walked into the room.
"Did they get them?" he asked harshly.
The Phantom shook his head. Then he asked:
"How about you, Twombly?" Twombly pointed to the shoulder of the coat, where a bullet hole showed in the cloth. The shirt beneath his coat was stained crimson.
"Just grazed my shoulder," he said. "But if you hadn't tipped the table in front of me—" He shuddered a little, and then his eyes moved to the crumpled form of the secretary on the floor.
"Poor Wilson never had a chance," he said bitterly. "I guess they thought he was carrying a gun. The poor kid wouldn't know what to do with one if he did have it."
"That's the kind of a rat that Li-Hung is," rasped the Phantom. "Luther Lane didn't have any more chance than Wilson did. Two of the murderers paid the penalty— but the other two escaped. But they'll pay, too. Li-Hung is nearing the end of his rope. He's getting desperate when he tries anything as risky as the attempt that was just made to get me."
"I guess I don't have to tell you that I'm in this thing up to my neck now," Twombly said levelly. "Before, it was just trying to help the police. But now— it's a personal grudge. The yellow devil planned to get me along with you."
"I wonder how they trailed me to your place?" Van asked thoughtfully.
"That's probably my fault," confessed Twombly. "I started to tell you— before all this happened— that I'd been contacting some sources of information down in Chinatown. I learned that Li-Hung had his headquarters in a building in Pell Street, just three doors from the corner. You go up a short flight of steps— the only steps from the street on the block."
VAN'S forehead wrinkled in a frown. Twombly was describing the entrance where he had been taken the night he was captured at the cemetery. Evidently the blond man knew what he was talking about.
"I guess I must have been too open in making my inquiries," Twombly went on. "Li-Hung must have gotten wind of the fact that I was checking up on him, and then had me trailed back here. He probably knew that I'd get in touch with you, and his men may have been lurking around waiting for you to show up."
"That's about the way it happened, I guess," the Phantom said morosely.
He turned to the uniformed police.
"Headquarters has been notified of the murder of Wilson," he said. "The men from the Homicide Bureau will be up in a few minutes. You can make the routine reports on the killing for the police records."
Then the Phantom went over and examined the contents of the pockets of the dead Chinamen, carefully placing the objects he removed in a pile beside each of the bodies. He scrutinized the few papers that he found on the men, but gleaned nothing of interest from them.
IT was nearly fifteen minutes before the Headquarters detail reached the hotel. Van talked with the detective sergeant in charge, and asked him whether or not any trace of the car with the escaping Chinese had been picked up.
The detective sergeant told him that the last news he had heard was that a car with three Chinamen had been seen heading toward the Queensborough Bridge. But the officer who had seen it stated that the car was moving along in a leisurely manner, and that it hadn't appeared like an escaping car.
The Phantom's thoughts started clicking. The Queensborough Bridge route meant that Li-Hung's men, if the occupants of the car were Li-Hung's thugs, were headed for Long Island. And Fowler lived out on Long Island.
Van tried to shape the pieces of the puzzle together. His eyes fixed thoughtfully on Twombly's face and found it grave and worried. The idea that Twombly had set a trap for him was not entirely dispelled from the Phantom's brain. It seemed ridiculous, in the face of Twombly's narrow escape from death himself. But still, such a scene could have been faked.
Twombly felt the Phantom's somber gaze and his eyes lifted. He asked:
"Is there anything that I can do now to help?"
"I don't think so," the Phantom said levelly. "The police will handle all the routine work that is to be done. Too bad about Wilson. Has he any relatives that should be notified?"
"No. He's an orphan. He's been with me for three years. I'm going to miss him like the devil. I hope I get the chance to square things with Li-Hung for that kid's murder." Twombly's voice was low and ugly.
"I'm looking for the same opportunity myself," the Phantom said grimly. "That's the job ahead of me now— finding Li-Hung and also the renegade white man who is working with him— or perhaps I should say— who is responsible for Li-Hung's nefarious crimes."
Twombly's eyes widened on the Phantom's face.
"Do you figure that there is a white man in back of all this?" he asked.
"Luther Lane had no enemies among the Chinese," the Phantom said flatly. "There seems to be no motive for Li-Hung to murder him, unless he was hired to do the job." A heavy scowl knitted Twombly's brows as he rasped:
"If that's the case, I hope you get them both— in the same way that they got Lane. Murdering beasts like that don't deserve any kind of a break."
THE Phantom looked at his watch and compared it with a heavy silver watch on the table. He decided that he might have time to do a little checking on Fowler. There were a couple of questions that he wanted to ask the millionaire. He thanked Twombly for the help he had offered in locating Li-Hung's headquarters— but he neglected to tell the blond man that the information was no news, since he had been a prisoner in the headquarters of the band of murdering Chinese.
He was deep in thought, as he pushed the button for the elevator; so deep in thought that he forgot to remove his mask. The elevator boy's eyes were wide in astonishment as the Phantom stepped in the car. But Dick Van Loan failed to notice it. Things were shaping up fast in his mind. And the blond man he had just left held a dominant place in the jigsaw puzzle that he was piecing together.
A TELEPHONE call to Randolph Fowler's office brought the information that the millionaire sportsman had not come into town. He had called from his estate at Greenport and said that he would be at home all day, so the Phantom decided to drive out.
He had little difficulty finding Fowler's place. The big, rambling colonial mansion was one of the show places in Greenport. A high brick wall ran around the estate. Van leaned on the button of his horn, and a colored gardener opened the iron gate for him. In reply to the Phantom's inquiry, he assured him that the colonel was up at the house.
As Van parked his car in front of the wide porch, the door opened and a colored woman came out on the porch with a broom and mop. Her eyes rolled at the sight of the masked man descending from the car. When the Phantom asked if Fowler was in, she gulped hard.
"Yas, suh. Yas, suh," she said. "He's back in the lib'ry, suh!"
The Phantom went through the wide hall, toward the open door that the colored woman had pointed out with a trembling forefinger. He saw Randolph Fowler bent over the library table. A yellow sheet was spread in front of the man, and he was turning the pages of a book beside the yellow paper. His visitor figured that Fowler was translating a cable message in code.
The Phantom's feet were noiseless on the carpet of the hall. He reached the door of the library without the race track owner being aware of his presence. A sardonic smile twisted the Phantom's lips as he saw Higgins, the bodyguard, propped back on two legs of a chair, fast asleep in a corner.
"Good afternoon, Fowler," the Phantom said pleasantly.
The Phantom had expected a manifestation of surprise on the part of Fowler. But he was totally unprepared for the reaction that his softly spoken salutation brought about.
Fowler whirled in his chair. His hand darted toward a drawer in the library table, and snaked upward with an automatic gripped in his fingers. In the same split second the legs of Higgins' chair crashed to the floor, and out of thin air a gun seemed to materialize in his hand.
Blood ran cold in the Phantom's veins. Fear and desperate intent gleamed in Fowler's eyes. Higgins' face was an ugly mask of hate, and his eyes gleamed lividly. An electric-charged atmosphere seemed to lift the hair at the back of Van Loan's neck. He felt he had never been nearer to death than he was at that minute.
LIKE a carved statue, the Phantom poised on the threshold, waiting for a shot from the gun of the fear-ridden sportsman. Van's hand was riveted to his side, for a single motion toward his own gun in the pocket of his coat might start the automatics of Fowler and Higgins roaring their twin messages of death.
Fowler's eyes widened on the masked figure in the door. His voice was hoarse and strained as he said:
"Oh— it's you!"
The breath escaped from the Phantom's lungs in a little sigh of relief. The color flowed back to Fowler's pallid cheeks, and he turned and slid the gun into the drawer.
"You act as though you were expecting someone," the Phantom said coolly. His eyes slitted a little on Fowler's face as he said it.
"A MAN in my position is always expecting unwelcome visitors," the millionaire said gruffly. "I've had a couple of kidnaping threats in the past six months. That's why I hired Higgins. He's supposed to be guarding me— when he's not too sleepy."
The bodyguard's neck got red, and he muttered: "It was so hot down at the lodge house last night, I didn't get any sleep."
Fowler smiled frostily, then turned to the Phantom.
"Come in and have a chair," he invited. "I suppose you've got some questions to ask."
Van walked in and took a chair near the table. His sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the yellow cable form, as Fowler carefully folded it and stuck it under the code book. The cable was in code, but the address of the sender was in English. And the cable had been sent from China.
"I wanted to get some information about the flight that caused the death of Eric Lane."
Fowler's eyes narrowed.
"The newspapers have been carrying complete reports on the flight," he retorted.
"I wanted to get your angle on it. You're a gambler, Fowler. Were you betting on Eric Lane to win?" A stubborn, defiant expression showed in Fowler's eyes.
"Lane was an expert aviator, but he was young," he said. "This was his first long flight. That was why I picked Bundy, who is now leading, to win."
"Then you would have stood to lose a sizable amount of money if Eric Lane had won," the Phantom persisted.
Fowler's face flushed in anger, and he rasped:
"I put up a purse of fifty thousand dollars as a prize. I stand to win just about that amount, if Bundy finishes first. But I'd gladly have lost twice that amount if young Eric Lane had lived to win. He was a swell kid— a very swell kid— in spite of the old hairy wolf he had for a father."
There was a ring of sincerity to the wealthy gambler's voice that partly convinced the Phantom.
"Has there been any news or information about Eric Lane's death?" he asked casually, "that hasn't been made public, Fowler?"
Van Loan's eyes widened as he saw the color rush from Fowler's face. The man was visibly agitated by the question. His voice was considerably strained and harsh as he said:
"What makes you ask that? Why do you think that all the news hasn't been given to the press?"
THE Phantom leaned forward in his chair. His voice was almost toneless as he spoke.
"There is some hook-up between the death of Eric Lane— and the murder of his father— some connection that I haven't been able to get," he rapped. "I don't think for a minute that it was by accident that Luther Lane's murder was staged at the entrance to the family vault. It wasn't a case of these men trailing Lane there to kill him. The motive behind Luther Lane's murder is inexplicably tangled with the death of his son. I'm going to find that motive, if I have to go to China to do it."
For a minute Fowler's eyes looked out of the window with an unseeing stare. His forehead wrinkled in a frown, and his fingers drummed nervously on the table. Then his eyes met the Phantom's probing stare in a long, level glance.
"I'VE been marked as a suspect in Lane's murder," he said harshly. "The police— and you, too, I suppose— figure that I had him bumped off. It hasn't been a pleasant feeling, the knowledge that at any minute I might be dragged into court and tried as a murderer. So you can't blame me for feeling bitter. Right now, Mister Phantom— I've got the chance to prove that you and the police are a pack of damned idiots.
"You are running around wild, looking for a motive for the murder of Luther Lane when there's a dozen different motives. You think it was revenge that prompted the killing— did you ever think that it might be a fortune— the ransom of an emperor—" Fowler's voice broke with shrill laughter. Then he grew quiet.
"In twenty-four hours— or less— when I've received a cable from China— I'll be able to tell the police— who killed Lane!"
At first the Phantom thought that the man's brain had cracked. But there was a grim, gloating quality deep in Fowler's eyes that showed Van Loan that the sportsman believed every word he had said.
In quiet, persuasive tones, the Phantom tried to show Fowler that he was doing wrong in concealing any evidence from the police. For while Fowler was waiting for the cablegram that would complete his evidence, the murderer might make a complete getaway. But the irascible Southerner was obdurate, so much so that the Phantom began to wonder if it wasn't a stall on the part of Fowler to divert suspicion.
Van talked for a few minutes more, then got up to leave. His voice had a thin edge as he said:
"I could turn you over to the police, Fowler, on the charge of concealing evidence. But I'm not going to. Anything that you know, I can find out for myself. And if this is just a dodge on your part, to throw dust in the eyes of the police— well— you've got my sympathy." Fowler's face was still a bleak, expressionless mask as the Phantom went out into the hall and back to his sleek roadster. Higgins accompanied him to the door, muttering profanely under his breath.
The Phantom paid little heed to the uncomplimentary undertones of the bodyguard. His brain was busy trying to piece together the scattered fragments of information he now had at hand.
Fowler might be telling the truth— or he might be guilty himself of instigating the murder. The cablegram he had received was from China. Eric Lane had been killed in China, on a flight that Fowler had promoted.
The cable might have been in reference to the death of the popular young aviator.
The Phantom turned the ignition key, jammed down the starter and the sleek black roadster threw gravel from flying wheels as he made a swift turn in the driveway and headed back to town.
HE called himself all kinds of an idiot for having so long delayed his visit to the mausoleum in Rocky Cave Cemetery. He felt that there was some secret in the crypt that held Eric Lane's coffin that should have been investigated before this. He'd go out to the cemetery immediately.
But his plan changed a little before he reached the city. It would be a good plan to have a witness with him when he entered the vault. He'd stop at Headquarters and pick up Inspector Crowley.
A LITTLE more than an hour later Van's roadster was eating up the miles, headed for the fashionable burial ground on the outskirts of the city. Crowley rode beside him in silence. Both men were deeply immersed in their thoughts, searching and probing the facts at hand in an endeavor to find the solution to the baffling mystery.
Van cut out of Van Cortlandt Park and across the hill. He was coming out of a quiet road onto a main highway. A traffic light in front of him blinked green as Van cut into the highway, making a left turn. Suddenly, without warning, a green coupe, long and low slung, flashed around a bend in the main highway and, completely disregarding the red light, hurtled along at breakneck speed.
Only the splendid acceleration of Van's roadster saved them from being sideswiped. As it was, the green car's mudguards scraped past Van's rear bumper. Crowley turned in his seat, mouthing a profane opinion of insane drivers. The green car was out of sight before he could get the license number. Crowley turned to Van and sputtered:
"The damned fool. He might have killed us."
Behind the black silk mask, Van's face was white and set. He jammed on the accelerator until his speedometer registered eighty miles. Out of the side of his mouth he growled: "Get a look at the fellow driving that green job?"
"He went past too damned fast," Crowley raved.
"I saw him— and he was a Chinaman!" the Phantom said flatly. "Maybe I'm wrong— but I think he was coming from the cemetery."
"One of Li-Hung's men?" Crowley rapped. "Trying to kill us?"
"I don't think he even saw us," the Phantom replied, as he skidded his car through the cemetery gates. "I've got a hunch, Crowley, that we delayed this trip to the Lane vault too long."
One of the men from the cemetery office rushed out to protest at the speed of Van's car. He glimpsed the masked face, then recognized the inspector. He waved at them as they roared along the path to the semicircular drive near the vault.
Van jerked the emergency brake and the tires squealed to a stop. Dark eyes flashed toward the vault, as the Phantom leaped over the door of the roadster. Crowley clambered out on the other side, then following Van's example, broke into a run, headed for the railed inclosure.
The Phantom was kneeling beside a man on the ground. About eight feet away another man lay sprawled lifeless on the green grass in front of the vault. The iron door to the mausoleum swung back and forth in the light summer breeze.
CROWLEY stared at the men on the ground. Then he remembered that Havens had hired private detectives to guard the tomb. Both private dicks had been shot down. The one in front of the Phantom was still alive, but Crowley could see that it was only a matter of moments before he, too, would be dead.
The inspector ran to help Van lift the wounded shamus to a sitting position. The man's face was racked with pain, and blood seeped from a bullet wound just over his heart. His lips moved, almost soundlessly. Both men bent to hear the gasping words.
"Three men— with sacks— came in a swell car— an hour ago— gunned us with silenced rods— went in— came out— sacks full— made getaway."
The Phantom was reaching for a silver flask he carried for emergencies like this. He poured a mouthful of potent brandy between the man's clenched teeth. The private detective's eyes opened again and looked at the Phantom.
"Get the dirty— dogs— for me," he pleaded.
"Were they Chinese?" Van rapped.
THE man's head shook slowly. He said:
"White men— one had— tin ear— twisted nose— pal called him— Higgy—" The tired, pain-racked eyes fluttered and then closed. Van lowered him gently to the grass. His lips pulled back in a feral snarl, and he swore softly and viciously. His eyes were hard on the face of the inspector.
"Recognize that description?" he asked.
Crowley nodded. His blue eyes blazed out of his bleak face.
"Higgins— Fowler's bodyguard," he muttered thickly. "Maybe that high-hat, horse-doping Kentucky colonel will be able to explain this away. This— and the murder of Luther Lane."
The Phantom's eyes were on the door to the vault. He watched it swing slowly to and fro, with eyes that were bitter and morose.
"I could have saved these men, perhaps," he said softly. "I should have followed my hunch sooner." Then he strode swiftly toward the vault. Crowley was at his side as they stepped through the iron door, into the gloom of the tomb. The black and silver coffin that had been brought there a few days before lay on the marble shelf directly in front of them. Van's eyes moved from the coffin to Crowley's face.
"I expected something like that," he said.
The lid had been removed from the coffin. Crowley and the Phantom moved toward the mahogany box, and their eyes met again.
Eric Lane's coffin was empty!
ONLY a few metal weights rested against the bottom of the casket. A few metal weights and some Chinese newspapers that had been used for stuffers of some sort. Crowley rubbed his chin and groaned.
"Well— I'll be damned!" he muttered. "What's the idea of Fowler's wanting to steal Eric Lane's body?"
"They didn't steal Eric Lane's body," the Phantom said harshly. "Eric's corpse never was in this casket. Something else was taken from here. Come on, Crowley. We've got to get out to Fowler's place in a hurry. I want to be in time— to save him."
Crowley looked at the masked face with wonder in his eyes. But the grim-jawed Phantom was striding toward his roadster. His eyes seemed to be glowing livid coals as they burned through the slits in the black silk mask. The nostrils of the straight, thin nose were flaring, like the nostrils of a hound on the scent.
Like a graven image, the Phantom slipped behind the wheel of his car. Crowley climbed in beside him, and was jounced back against the cushions as the black roadster leaped forward, spun gravel beneath its tires, and raced for the entrance to the cemetery.
There was no time to talk. The Phantom was bent over the wheel, driving like a madman. Out on the highway, a motorcycle cop took up the pursuit, but was lost on the road in ten miles. Evidently he telephoned ahead, for a few miles further on in the city, the Phantom raced into a bevy of motorcycles and radio cars. He had to slow down to keep from scattering policemen all over the scenery.
Inspector Crowley leaned from the side of the roadster and cursed the men fluently. Then he realized that his men were performing their duty. He apologized gruffly and detailed two motorcycle men to precede them through the city traffic.
Behind the screaming sirens of the cycles, the Phantom's car sped downtown and across the city. Over the Queensborough Bridge they raced, while traffic scattered to make way for the black thunderbolt that hurtled along in back of the racing police escort. Over the bridge, the Phantom slowed down.
"Better dismiss your men, Crowley," he rasped. "Let one of them trail us out to Greenport, to cover us on speed charges."
CROWLEY followed the Phantom's instructions. The bike cop who was sent back looked disappointed. He knew that the Phantom and the inspector were on a hot trail, and there was action ahead. But he had to follow the orders of his superior.
The Phantom cut northward on the Island until he reached a main artery of traffic that was nearly deserted at this hour. A new boulevard paralleling the road he sought, had taken most of the beach traffic and left the older road clear.
The speedometer needle on Van's roadster hovered between eighty and ninety as the Phantom kept the accelerator touching the floor boards. Crowley gritted his teeth and prayed to the saints that no speeding cars would come out of any of the side roads.
They roared through villages, startling suburbanites and bringing apoplectic flushes to the faces of the village police. The motorcycle policeman who trailed them saved them arrest more than once. Three different times, Crowley shut his eyes, as cars loomed in their path and a crash seemed inevitable. But the Phantom's steady hand and powerful wrists flicked the black roadster around the impending danger by the barest fractions of inches.
A prayer of thanksgiving rose to the inspector's lips as they started up a long hill, and the Phantom said tightly:
"Fowler's place is at the top of the hill."
If the murderers at the cemetery had an hour's start on them, the speedster at the wheel of the black roadster had surely cut that lead in half, if not more. Crowley straightened in his seat.
His hand reached for the service gun in his pocket, and he cradled it in his lap.
The iron gate to the Fowler estate was open. The Phantom took the driveway on two wheels, then slithered to a stop inside the gate. He jerked his head toward the brick and wood lodge house and said tersely:
"That's where Higgins sleeps nights. We'll look there first."
HE swung his long legs over the door and started for the lodge, while Crowley raced around the car to join him. The knob turned in the Phantom's grasp. His hand reached to his pocket and closed around the butt of his pistol, as he threw the door open and stepped into the living room of the lodge. Just inside the door he halted, and his eyes stabbed at the figure of Higgins, sprawled on the floor in front of the fireplace.
Fowler's bodyguard was flat on his back. From his chest protruded the handle of a thin, jade-handled knife. Higgins had been stabbed to death!
Crowley swore under his breath and walked toward the dead man. His eyes fixed on the curiously carved handle of the knife.
"No doubt about who did that, is there?" he swore again. "Our friend Li-Hung has been here ahead of us."
"IF not Li-Hung, some other Chinese," the Phantom clipped. He was moving swiftly around the room, peering into closets, probing behind the furniture. Then he halted in the middle of the room.
"We're wasting time here, Crowley," he said sharply. "The murderers may be up at the main house right now. Whatever it was that Higgins took from the vault, certainly it isn't here now."
"I suppose Li-Hung and Fowler used Higgins for a cat's-paw to get what they wanted— then rubbed him out," Crowley raged, as they ran back to the car.
The Phantom was silent, but a thrill of exultation was pounding through his veins. The trail was getting hot. Right now the murderer of Luther Lane might be at Fowler's house. He'd get Li-Hung, the man with the fiendish brain who had twice tried to murder him! The Phantom's jaw set grimly.
"Where's our motorcycle cop?" he clipped, as he jammed in the gears and started up the drive. He had been too busy driving to notice what had happened behind them.
"We lost him in that last village," Crowley growled. "A car that you nearly sideswiped swerved out of your way and jammed into another car. They were still piling up when we went through. Moriarty's probably still trying to straighten out the jam."
The black car slithered to a stop again in front of the colonial house. The Phantom and Crowley hit the steps at a run, raced up and across the porch. The door was locked.
The Phantom leaned against the bell for a long minute, but there was no sign of life from within. He glanced at Crowley, and his face was grim. He reached for his pocket, jerked forth a leather key container. The second skeleton key clicked the lock. The Phantom pushed open the door, and called:
"Fowler—"
His voice seemed to echo down the long hall. But no other sound greeted them. Silence, deep and impenetrable, seemed to have gripped the big house— a silence that was eerie and forbidding.
The Phantom felt the palms of his hands growing moist as he started along the hall toward the library door. A presentiment of evil seemed to seep into his brain, a warning of impending peril that sent his sharp eyes toward the dim stairways and the shadowy recesses along the hall. It was an intangible feeling, but nevertheless the Phantom knew that some sixth sense was signaling that danger lurked near-by.
Danger— he fervently hoped that it was danger from the murderer of Luther Lane. His pulse beat fast with the thought that beyond the door of the library he might come face to face again with his enemy— the insidious, crafty, murdering Li-Hung.
VAN'S hand was steady as it reached for the knob of the library door. Crowley was at his elbow. The inspector, too, seemed charged with the same electric current that was thrilling through the Phantom's veins, for the police official's bulldog jaw was thrust forward and his eyes blazed with the lust of battle.
The door swung open under the Phantom's swift shove. For a second his eyes scanned the big room; then they fixed on the big, bulky body drooped over the table. One side of Randolph Fowler's florid face rested against the polished surface of the mahogany table. His eyes were wide and staring, the pupils strangely dilated.
There was no need for the Phantom to step closer. One quick glance told the whole story. The killer had struck again!
A LOW sound that was almost a groan escaped from the Phantom's lips. He stepped toward Fowler, let his fingers brush against the cheek of the dead man. There was still warmth in the flesh. They had missed the murderer only by minutes.
Crowley was staring down at the dead millionaire. His grizzled brows tangled in a heavy frown. He looked up at Van with a peculiar expression.
"He looks just like Lane did— the pupils of his eyes show up the same," he ejaculated. "There isn't a mark on him that I can see. It's the same mysterious poisoning."
Van straightened up suddenly. His voice had a savage note as he said:
"We can't have missed them by much. The killers must have come here in a car— and we didn't hear any car going away. I believe the murderer is still here in the house. I'll go through the lower rooms; you take the next floor up. We'll go through the place from top to bottom."
Crowley was on his way to the door before the Phantom had finished. Van Loan heard his feet pounding up the stairs, as he went along the hall to the next room.
The second room was a living-room, with French windows that opened out onto a side veranda. The Phantom's eyes slithered across the windows and slitted as they saw that both big windows were locked from the inside. No one had escaped that way. The living room was empty.
He pushed open the swinging door that led into the dining room. His fingers were around the butt of his automatic as he followed the swing of the door into the next room. He raked the room with a glance, and his eyes fixed on a closet door on the opposite wall. The door was open a trifle, and the Phantom thought he detected a slight noise that might have come from behind that door.
His feet slid across the carpeted floor in the direction of the closet door. He jerked it open, and the muzzle of his automatic covered the adit. Like twin lances, his eyes stabbed at the murky depths of the closet. It was apparently empty.
Van's brow wrinkled beneath his mask. A faint, indefinable odor reached his nostrils, puzzling his brain. Then he placed it. It was the faint perfume of sandalwood. The odor had an Oriental tang; and with it, the tocsin that had been faintly signaling in the Phantom's brain seemed to break forth in a clamor.
THE Phantom's feet moved a little to the left, while his keen eyes probed the darkness. Now he saw that the orifice took a bend; it had an L-shaped angle inside. And there was a darker shadow just beyond the elbow turn.
Hot blood pounded at the Phantom's temples. Someone was hidden in the closet. Someone— undoubtedly the murderer of Randolph Fowler, crouched against the wall, around the L-shaped angle.
The Phantom's gun lifted. His voice was hard and menacing as he rasped:
"Come out of that closet. Stick your hands out first— then follow them out."
A long, breathless silence followed his words. Then a pair of yellow hands, with long, curling, pointed nails, showed beyond the sharp corner in the wall. The Phantom's shoulders hunched. His eyes riveted on those hands, and then on the figure of the squat Chinese who stepped into view. It was the pock-marked man from Li-Hung's mob.
VAN'S eyes were focused sharply on the pock-marked Chinese. In some mysterious way, this man— or some ally who was in the house with him— had stricken down Randolph Fowler. The Phantom's finger tightened on the trigger of his automatic. He was tense and alert, watching for the slightest movement of those ugly, clawing hands. One little flick of those long nailed fingers might mean death. The Phantom grimly resolved that he would send a bullet crashing through the heart of the Chinese gangster at the first suspicious move.
The pock-marked man moved out slowly, stiff-legged, with halting, jerky steps. His eyes gleamed like tawny pools of fire, and his lips pulled back, showing broken, uneven teeth that looked like the fangs of some evil beast. His hands were held rigidly in front of him.
The Phantom backed slowly away from the door of the closet as the squat Chinese thug came out into view. Then he said:
"Get your hands up. March over and face the wall."
A sudden, furtive gleam showed in the eyes of the pock-faced man. And in the same split second, the Phantom sensed danger in back of him.
He felt, rather than saw, the dark body that was hurtling toward him, and whirled to meet the attack. For a bare fraction of a second, his eyes met the murderous flash in the glinting, slanting eyes of Li-Hung. Then their bodies crashed together, and they were locked in a furious embrace.
The fingers of the nefarious arch-criminal had fastened around the throat of the Phantom, and were slowly tightening. Van felt the blood rushing to his head under the choking pressure of those steel fibered talons, as he smashed at the leering, evil face of Li-Hung with the butt of his pistol.
The pock-marked man hurled himself at the Phantom's back, grabbed at his arms, and jerked them backward. Van tried to duck low, tried to pitch the squat thug over his shoulder, but the vise-like grip tightened around his throat. The man on his back was slowly forcing his arms backward, until Van's shoulders strained at their sockets.
He weaved with his shoulders, then brought his knee up sharply, crashing it into the groin of Li-Hung. The strangling grip slackened for a second, and Van gulped in deep breaths of air. He ducked his head and swung his body at the hips.
The pock-marked man flipped over and his hold on one of Van's arms was broken.
THE Phantom whipped his fist around and up, but the blow grazed the side of Li-Hung's jaw. Then the pock-marked man was on his back again, clawing at the Phantom's eyes with his sharp-pointed nails. Van gritted his teeth, buried his face in the bosom of Li-Hung's white, starched shirt and clubbed at the murderer's head with his free fist. He felt his knuckles smash against soft flesh.
Then a burst of molten fire seemed to blaze in his face, and his nostrils were filled with the acrid fumes of gas. He realized in a second, as Li-Hung jerked away from him, that the crafty Oriental had smashed some sort of a gas capsule under his nose.
The man on his shoulders slipped away. Scalding tears blinded the Phantom's eyes, and the potent gas seemed to be tearing at the lining of his lungs. He shook his head, tried to clear his vision and charged toward the dim figure that loomed in front of him.
In the distance he seemed to hear Crowley's stentorian voice shouting:
"Are you all right, Phantom? Hold the murdering devil until I get there."
Then the ceiling dropped on his head and he went forward on his face. He thought dimly that the pock-marked man had slugged him with a blackjack. Then his thoughts were blank.
WHEN he came to, the room was empty. He staggered to his feet, and his red-rimmed eyes groped around for Crowley. The inspector was nowhere in sight. A faint groan reached Van's ears. He went out into the hall, found Crowley just sitting up at the foot of the stairs.
The veteran policeman was cursing a blue streak, calling himself all of the dumb clucks that he could put his tongue to. He looked at the Phantom with chagrin.
"I guess we walked into something, didn't we?" he said.
Van shook his head grimly.
"Li-Hung won all the honors there, Crowley. He would have killed me if he hadn't heard your voice. Probably thought you had other men with you and decided to get away quickly. How did they happen to get you out here?"
"I heard the racket in the room where you were, and came charging down the stairs like a wild bull. There were two of the slant-eyed devils waiting around the corner at the foot of the stairs. One of them slugged me as I went past, I guess."
"Then there must have been four of them," the Phantom said. "I suppose they made a clean getaway, while we were out."
The Phantom and Crowley went back to the library, where Fowler's body was still crumpled against the table.
"Well," Crowley said morosely, "we're right back where we started from."
"Not quite," the Phantom's voice was harsh. "We've narrowed the field down now to two suspects— Twombly and Manson."
"Twombly— Manson— and Li-Hung."
BACK at Crowley's office, the Phantom asked to have a check-up made, to see if a car containing four Chinese had been seen along any of the possible routes from Greenport. The machinery of the law worked swiftly and in fifteen minutes they knew that Li-Hung and his men had crossed on the ferry and landed just below Pelham. They traced the car downtown through calls to radio patrols and traffic officers.
In the downtown traffic the Phantom thought the car had been lost from sight, until a patrolman reported that he had seen the machine driving into one of the garages that rented out cars.
The Phantom reached for his hat. "I'll pick up the trail from there, Inspector," he said. "Your hands will be full taking care of the reports on Fowler's murder. I wish you'd have the medical examiner make a thorough examination of the skin on Fowler's body. I'd like to have every square inch examined."
"What should he look for?" asked Crowley blankly.
"A tiny red puncture, not much larger than the mark of a hypodermic needle."
Crowley looked mystified.
"Hell, man," he objected, "they might have jabbed Fowler with a poison needle, but Lane certainly wasn't poisoned that way."
"I know it," the Phantom said enigmatically. "It's just a theory, but I think it may lead to a solution of the mystery of the poisoning of both Fowler and Lane."
FIFTEEN minutes later, the Phantom was talking to the garage owner. The man was flattered at the opportunity of being of assistance to the world's greatest sleuth. But unfortunately, the information he had to offer was not of much value.
Four Chinamen had come to the garage in a hurry, at about three-thirty in the afternoon, wanted to hire a car. They had plenty of money for the necessary deposit, and one of the Chinese had a license. They had brought the car back about half an hour before the Phantom's visit, had paid the rental charge, but had not withdrawn their deposit, as they said they might be around to get the car again later in the evening. The proprietor had not noticed which direction the four took on leaving the garage.
The Phantom's eyes were hard and bitter. It looked as though he had reached an impasse; the trail of Li-Hung seemed to end at the garage. He thanked the man, gave him Inspector Crowley's number and asked him to ring the inspector if the Chinamen came back for the car that evening. The garage owner eagerly agreed to do so.
A glance at his wrist-watch reminded the Phantom that he had not eaten since morning. The garage was in the East Thirties and there was a tiny French restaurant a block or two away, where the onion soup and crepes suzette were marvelous. It might be that Li-Hung and his men would be back in the next half hour or so. Or if the leader of the murdering gang didn't come back, he might send one of his men to collect the balance of the deposit.
The Phantom gave the restaurant address to the garage owner. He would be there for the next half hour, in case the Chinese returned in that time.
His meal was brief and sketchy, and in thirty minutes he was walking back toward the garage. His mind was occupied with the conflicting elements of the case. But even though his thoughts were preoccupied, his eyes unconsciously stabbed at the dark shadows of doors and alleys as he walked.
The Phantom was always a marked man. Hated and feared by the underworld, he walked in the very shadow of death every time he donned the black silk mask that was the insignia of relentless warfare against organized crime.
SO it was that his sharp eyes caught the moving blur of a shadow in an alley, halfway between the restaurant and the garage. With a movement that was partly instinctive, the Phantom's body bent low and hurtled toward the ground, as he saw the shadow detach itself from the lighter background and an arm whip up in a menacing movement.
There was a sharp metallic sound and the darkness of the alley was punctured by a flash of orange and red. The Phantom was on his knees as the bullet flattened itself against a steel pole in back of him. Then he left the ground, like a sprinter clearing the blocks in a flying start. He flashed across the dark mouth of the alley and flattened himself against the bricks in the corner.
The automatic leaped from his pocket— but his ambushing foe was beating a hasty retreat. The Phantom could hear the rapid slap of shoes against the cement.
LIKE a startled deer, he raced after the man, saw him swarm up and over the fence that formed a dead end to the alley. The Phantom's gun lined on the squirming gunman, then his finger froze on the trigger.
He caught a glimpse of the man's face, in the half light. The man was a Chinese. Van's gun rammed back into his pocket, and his long legs drove forward at furious speed. If he could capture the man who had tried to bushwhack him, he could learn where Li-Hung was hiding.
The Phantom's hands grabbed the top of the fence, and his body arched over. He cleared the top of the fence in a graceful vault— but when he landed on the other side, one foot dropped on a round stick of wood. The stick rolled, and the Phantom was pitched forward as his foot skidded under him. He felt the ligaments in his ankle wrench as he went forward. He thrust out his hands, and saved himself from a nasty fall.
Like a cat he clambered to his feet, but his ankle bent under his weight, and almost threw him again. He rapped out a curse, and his hand flashed to his pocket for his gun. Then his eyes widened as he saw the Chinaman racing up the iron steps of a fire escape like a climbing monkey. The Phantom's eyes slithered to the top of the fire-escape and riveted on the illuminated sign across the top of the twenty-story building. The flashing letters spelled "Hotel Wardleigh."
Van Loan ground his teeth savagely. He dared not fire at the man and into one of the windows of the hotel that the man raced past.
Van's jaw was grim as he saw the man disappear through an open window. His gaze traveled up the rows of lighted windows. The would-be killer had ducked in at a window on the eighth floor. And Roy Manson's room was on the eighth floor of the Hotel Wardleigh. The Phantom's eyes blazed venomously, and he wondered if Manson would alibi this Chinamen as a man hunting for a job.
VAN'S ankle ached as he made swiftly for the areaway that headed into the wide drive where deliveries were made to the hotel. Forgetful of his mask, he came out onto the sidewalk, and plunged into the hotel. Guests in evening clothes, ready for the theatre or dinner, were startled by the masked figure who brushed through toward the elevator. The house dick thought it was a holdup, and a gun showed in his hand as he cut across the lobby to head the Phantom off.
The Phantom's hand slid into his pocket, and came out with the platinum badge, on which the mask of the Phantom was outlined in diamonds. The badge was known and recognized by every law officer in the world. The hotel detective's hand snapped in a salute, and he asked:
"Can I be of help?"
"Yes, come up to the eighth floor with me," the Phantom snapped.
As they reached the elevator bank, he clipped:
"Have you seen a Chinaman step out of an elevator in the last five or ten minutes?"
The house detective shook his head.
"We haven't any Chinese guests," he said. "Don't believe I've ever seen a Chinaman in the lobby."
"One may come down while we are upstairs. Have one of the boys hold him on some pretext. I'll square it with the management if it isn't the man I'm after."
THE house detective signaled for a bell-boy and relayed the Phantom's orders, as an elevator door swung open and the cage emptied. The Phantom stepped in with the house dick at his heels. At a motion from the detective, the wide-eyed operator slammed the cage door shut.
"Floor, please?" he said, with his eyes wide on the masked man.
"Eighth— and make it in a hurry," the Phantom said.
The cage shot up, and they got off at the eighth. Van led the way toward Manson's room. As they raced down the corridor, he asked: "Have you got a pass key?"
The house detective pulled out a keyring. He had a pass key in his fingers as they reached Manson's door. At a nod from the Phantom, he shoved the key in the lock and jerked the door open. The room was in darkness, but the Phantom's fingers found the switch inside the door. His automatic was resting against his hip as he flooded the room with light.
The room was empty!
Van's forehead wrinkled in a frown, as his eyes moved around the deserted room. It looked as though a cyclone had swept through.
A chair was overturned, and an ash tray had been knocked from the reading table. One of the floor lamps had been knocked over and the waste-basket lay on its side.
The house dick stared at the disorder.
"Looks like there was a battle here," he muttered.
The Phantom's eyes narrowed. It could be the signs of a struggle— or a man blundering through the room in the dark might have created some of the confusion.
WHILE his eyes were traveling around the room, a knock sounded at the door. The house dick glanced at him, then opened the door at his nod. Van recognized the man standing in the doorway. It was Finney, one of the Headquarters men. Finney nodded to the Phantom and said:
"I saw you slam across the lobby and figured you were coming up here after Manson. I'm supposed to pick him up, when he shows in the lobby. Kennedy, who was on his tail today, trailed him to his room about noon. He hasn't shown since. I just relieved Kennedy about an hour ago and got the report that Manson was still in his room."
The Phantom's lips twisted in a cynical grin.
"I'm not blaming you, Finney," he said, "but did you boys ever hear that they put fire escapes outside of hotel windows?"
"Then— Manson's made a getaway?" the city dick's voice was alarmed. "He couldn't have gone down the fire escape in daylight; someone would have seen him. And besides, he knew he was being tailed. He used to tell Kennedy and me where he was going and what he was going to do. Said he hadn't anything to cover up."
"He didn't tell you he was going to give you the slip from his room, did he?" Van's voice was level and flat. Finney's face hardened, crimsoning.
"Okay, Finney," the Phantom made light of the incident. "I'm a little disappointed because I'd like very much to get my hands on Manson right now. Better get in touch with Headquarters— and have them throw a dragnet out. Crowley can broadcast his description." Then his face got grim and he added:
"I don't think it will do much good, though. Poor devil!"
He moved over to the window and stared out across the fire escape to the areaway below. His voice was thoughtful as he said: "Strange that a man with Manson's money would have a room with an outlook like this. He could have afforded the best room in the hotel."
"I don't know what it's all about," the house dick said. "But from what you said to Finney— I figure maybe he wanted a room where he could slip up and down the fire escape after dark."
"There's something in that," the Phantom nodded. "I guess I was figuring the same way when I mentioned it."
They stepped out into the hall, and as the house dick turned toward the elevator, the Phantom said: "Those stairs go down the back way, don't they? I don't like to stalk through the lobby, masked like this. I want to leave without attracting too much attention."
THE house dick didn't look pleased at the prospect of walking down seven flights of stairs. But he didn't voice his thoughts. They made it to the first floor without encountering anyone on the stairs. In the hall in back of the elevators, the house dick said:
"That door leads out onto the back court, where deliveries are made. You can go out that way."
"I'll telephone a report to the inspector right away," said Finney.
The Phantom nodded his head absently. His eyes were moving from the court door back up to the stairs they had just descended. He was whistling softly to himself, and his fingers rubbed against his jaw.
Finney watched him a second; then he asked:
"Are you figuring that Manson might have come down that way, sir?"
The Phantom's head bobbed quickly. There was a faint undercurrent of excitement in his voice as he said:
"I'm figuring that Manson came down that way, Finney. But— I'm wondering whether he came down himself— or whether somebody made him come down those back stairs." Finney stared at him dumbly. Then the Phantom started for the door to the areaway.
"Tell Inspector Crowley I'll get in touch with him in the next hour or so," he said.
IN the alley outside, the Phantom pocketed his mask. He moved across the cement with a brisk stride, flagged a cab and gave the driver the address of the man who knew his secret— Frank Havens.
He found the newspaper publisher smoking an after dinner cigar. They went into Havens' library, and Van supplemented the information that Havens had obtained from Police Headquarters with his own experience of the past two days. When he had finished, Havens said:
"It looks as if you have got the thing pretty well pinned down to Manson, doesn't it, Van? He must be the man who is backing the play of Li-Hung."
The Phantom's brow furrowed in a frown.
"I wish I could be sure of that, Frank," he said. "But there's some other points that have got to be cleared up. That's one reason I came here tonight. I want you to get hold of Lawton Marsh, the head of Consolidated Cable."
Havens' eyebrows lifted.
"Why, he's a good friend of yours, Van."
"I know— but I want some copies of cables that came to Fowler in the last couple of days. I can't get them, as Richard Curtis Van Loan. Marsh knows that you are the official spokesman for the Phantom. He'll get them and send them up here with a messenger, if you explain why you want them."
HAVENS reached for the phone, and finally located the president of the largest trans-Atlantic cable company at his club. The newspaper man talked for five minutes, then hung up.
"He'll have them up here in fifteen minutes," he said.
"Fine," nodded the Phantom. "You've got a code book here, haven't you?"
Havens walked over to the rows of books and came back with the code book. The two men discussed the murders of Lane and Fowler while waiting for the messenger. The Phantom phoned Inspector Crowley, and asked if any word had been received from the garage where Li-Hung had rented the car. Crowley reported negatively. Van said he was with Havens, and that he would get in touch with the inspector in thirty minutes.
"What's the next move?" Havens asked, as Dick Van Loan leaned back, puffing meditatively at a cigarette.
"I've got to get to Li-Hung," the Phantom said grimly. "He undoubtedly changed his headquarters after I made my second escape, since I discovered the hiding place of his loot. It's going to be difficult to pick up his trail again. There's only one way that I can see to do it. That is— to let myself be captured by Li-Hung, but to do it so that some of Crowley's men can see where I am taken. Then they can pull a quick raid— and if I'm lucky they can get Li-Hung before he gets me."
Havens snapped out of his chair excitedly. His face paled and his voice was husky with emotion, as he objected strenuously.
"Don't be an idiot, Van," he insisted. "There must be some other way. That yellow devil would rather see you dead than any person in the world. He hates you so badly that he'd sacrifice everything he has to gain in this plot for the opportunity of murdering you. You can't do it. It's too dangerous. You wouldn't live five minutes, once you were in the power of that hideous monster."
The ring of the doorbell interrupted their conversation. Havens looked at Van Loan and said soberly:
"That will be Marsh's messenger." A minute or two later the butler tapped discreetly at the door, and handed Havens a thin sheaf of yellow cable forms. The Phantom took them, and his eyes raced from the typed words to the code book. Havens watched in silence, as Van translated the cables. There were four of them, and when Van had finished the last one, he was scowling savagely.
HE reached for a pad of blanks on the table, consulted the book and wrote a message in code. Then he stood up, shoved the cables he had translated across at Havens, together with the message he had Written, and said flatly:
"Send that cable for me, will you, Frank? I'm on my way."
"But where are you going?" Havens asked in surprise. "It's still early."
"I'm going back to Chinatown," the Phantom said fiercely. "I'm going down to get the slimy rat who murdered my friend, Eric Lane." Havens' mouth dropped open in astonishment. He gasped:
"Eric Lane— murdered— and by Li-Hung."
THE Phantom nodded grimly. He was almost to the door when the phone on the library table rang. Havens picked up the instrument, barked into it.
"Yes. He's here. Just a minute." He handed the instrument to the Phantom, saying: "It's Crowley."
"Yes, Inspector," the Phantom clipped. Then his face went hard and his eyes slitted. "A telephone message saying that if you wanted to get the man who murdered Lane, he is at Mott Street? Do you think it's a plant?"
He listened for a second, then said harshly:
"It might be a frame-up, Inspector, but it's worth taking a chance on. Some one in the mob might have weakened— there've been so many killings that have taken place. How soon will you leave? Give me a thirty-minute start— I'll meet you there— if I'm not on the spot, go ahead with your raid. That's right, Inspector."
The Phantom's roadster raced to the secret address in Twenty-third Street that he used as a place for changing his identity. Van's jaw was set and grim and there were dark flames of anger in his eyes. With the information he had gained from the cables that Fowler had received from China, his case was almost complete.
Thirty minutes from now, he would be face to face with one of the cleverest criminals he had ever encountered, a man with the brain of a scientist and the heart of a demon out of hell. Van's heart beat faster at the thought of the danger and the triumph that were ahead of him.
He felt that if he were successful in this case, he would have rid society of one of the most vicious criminals that would ever be recorded in history. For he realized that the man who had planned the murders of Eric Lane and his father was a fiend in human form.
THE Phantom parked his car a block away from the house. His dark form was like a shadow as he slipped along the alley, then into his apartment. Carefully he drew the shades before switching on the light.
Then he went to work with dexterous speed.
He divested himself of the expensively tailored clothes of Richard Curtis Van Loan, and in their place donned a loose black cambric shirt and trousers. He walked into the tiny bathroom, and with his set of makeup paints, the good-looking features of the Phantom underwent a miraculous change.
Bits of adhesive plaster, aided by clever strokes of a makeup pencil, lengthened his eyes. Bits of wax flared his nostrils; and gummed tissue, carefully built up, added height to his cheek bones. He glanced in the mirror, and, satisfied with the ground work, applied a coat of saffron-colored tint that dried instantly and would remain until removed by a special preparation. His hands, wrists and arms were treated with the same preparation.
Running the water into the washbowl, he poured in a small quantity of concentrated hair dye, soaked his hair and rubbed it smooth with a coarse towel. His wavy brown hair became a smooth and glistening jet black. A few additional touches completed the metamorphosis. A slant-eyed, yellow-skinned Chinese stared back at him from the bathroom mirror.
The Phantom's brain was busy as he donned the Chinese makeup. From his knowledge of the arch fiend who was responsible for the deaths of four men, the two Lanes, Fowler and Higgins— Van Loan believed that a trap had been laid for Inspector Crowley and his men. It was the Phantom's intention to try to spring that trap before the arrival of the police. It was for this reason that he had asked Inspector Crowley to give him a thirty-minute start.
The Phantom walked over to his trunk, took out a small but effective Luger automatic and spent a minute or two in assuring himself that the mechanism was flawless. He dropped an extra clip of steel-nosed cartridges into the hip pocket of the loose, baggy trousers. He clipped the automatic into the shoulder holster he wore under the black blouse, making sure that the butt rested just under the hemmed slit in the shirt.
HE knew that there would be no chance for a delay, once he went into action. It was going to be a case where every second counted. But he wanted it that way— it was the only way of being sure of springing the trap that had been set for the police.
Satisfied that his preparations were as complete as he could make them, he switched off the light. Less than fifteen minutes had elapsed from the time he had come in, when a slippered, round-shouldered Chinese slipped out of the door of the apartment.
The Phantom was on the final trail of the murderer of Luther Lane.
Outside, Van cogitated for a moment, then decided against using his car. It would excite the suspicions of any traffic officer he might pass if a low-caste, poorly garbed Chinaman were to be seen driving an expensive roadster. He padded along swiftly to the nearest subway station, and ducked down into the kiosk. Ten minutes later, he emerged a block or two away from the rendezvous that had been arranged by phone for Inspector Crowley.
The yellowed forehead wrinkled in a frown. Crowley's message had said that the police could get the murderer of Luther Lane at the old headquarters of the Five Fingers Tong. The Phantom knew that the headquarters of the various Tongs were always located on the top floors of any buildings they occupied, symbolic of the fact that the Tongs were all-supreme, and nothing could be above them. The place he sought, therefore, would be at the top story of the building at the Mott Street address.
Soon he was slouching along the sidewalk, mingling with the hundreds of Chinese who moved along or gathered in clusters at the curb. His sleepy-looking eyes darted along the street, but he could see no signs of any of Crowley's men. He breathed a little sigh of relief. He had arrived in time; or, at least, he had arrived before the police. And he hoped that would amount to the same thing.
HE gave his attention to getting into the abandoned headquarters of the Tong. He spotted the building, a three-story, flat-roofed wooden edifice that was a story lower than the building on the right and two floors lower than the one on the left. As his aimless gaze wandered up, he saw that lights gleamed from the windows on the third floor.
His eyes riveted on the door leading from the street to a narrow stairway that led upward between the entrances to stores on either side. Two Chinamen lounged in the doorway. Van's heart skipped a beat. One of the men was the pock-faced lieutenant of Li-Hung.
Then his heart dropped. There would be no chance of a strange Chinese getting through that door while the pock-faced man was standing guard. Not without a fight, and that would ruin his plans. But the fertile mind of the Phantom was already busy planning an adit to the building.
FOR a second he paused in front of one of the store windows; then his stooped figure merged into the shadows of an alley. Gone were the slouching gait and the stoop shouldered attitude now. The Phantom was tense and wary, his eyes keenly searching the side of the building.
He circled halfway around the wooden edifice, then cursed between clenched teeth. Built as it had been before the present existing fire laws, there was no fire escape on the wooden structure.
The Phantom moved to a brick wall that separated the rear yard from the one on the left, vaulted over and a little murmur of satisfaction escaped his lips. The four-story building had a steel framework of a fire escape.
The Phantom took a quick run, and his athletic body lifted in a spring. His hands gripped the end of the extension of the last level, and the ladder swung down under his weight. Before the bottom had touched the ground, a dark-clad figure was swarming up.
Van appreciated the fact that he might be seen from the street, and that one of the patrolmen on duty in the district might spot him and mistake him for a cat burglar. But there was no time to think of what might happen in the eventuality. At any second he expected to hear the shrill siren of the police cars. At any moment, now, squad cars might disgorge Inspector Crowley and a raiding squad of brave men, who would plunge fearlessly up the stairs into the certain death that Van was certain Li-Hung had prepared for them.
To be sure, the forces of the law would triumph— but at dreadful cost of life. And— of this Van had no doubt— in the mêlée the arch-fiend Li-Hung would make his escape.
Swiftly and silently Van raced up the ladder, a dark figure of menace. His automatic was gripped in his fist. He had no way of knowing whether Li-Hung was guarding his trap from above as well as from below. He might well run into a flock of death-dealing bullets, when his head showed over the coping of the building at the top of the fire escape. But that was a chance that he had to take.
Despite his efforts, the fire escape creaked and groaned beneath his rapid steps. As he reached the third story, he thought he heard a window open below him, and a guttural voice yelled something in Chinese. He paid no heed, but continued his swift flight to the top.
He paused for a second at the top landing, then went up the rungs of the ladder to the roof. His eyes raked the dim shadows as his head lifted over the edge of the coping. As far as he could see, the roof was untenanted.
VAN swung down on the other side and the cork soles of his slippers scrunched swiftly across the tar and gravel roof. His eyes lighted as he glanced down at the roof of the wooden building. Light streamed up through a skylight. There was a means of adit, provided he could get down to the building.
He wasted thirty valuable seconds searching the roof of the building he occupied, looking for a plank or some means of bridging the gap between the buildings. There was none. It looked as if he were stalemated. Then the Phantom walked back to the two-foot coping that ran around the roof of the building. There were flat granite blocks nearly a foot wide along the tops of the bricks.
A SIX-FOOT interval separated the buildings, and there was a drop of from ten to twelve feet in the levels of the roofs. Grimly the Phantom eyed that chasm. His eye dropped to the alley below. He took another glance at the gleaming skylight, and his nerves steeled. There was no other way to do it. If he were going to save Crowley and his men— if he hoped to capture Li-Hung— that chasm had to be crossed.
The Phantom turned and paced back along the roof. His jaw was grim and resolute as he started back toward the edge at a run. His speed increased with each step until his legs lifted in a jump that brought him onto the flat coping, like a diver hitting the springboard. His feet hit the granite and then his body launched out into space.
For a second or two his heart seemed to turn somersaults, and he thought his flying leap was going to fall short. On a level jump he could have made it— but the two foot wall had slowed his speed.
Then the roof of the wooden building rushed up to meet him. He cleared the edge of the roof by inches, and his feet hit against the gravel. He threw his body forward, to keep from staggering backward into the alley, hoping fervently that the noise of his descent onto the roof wouldn't alarm Li-Hung below.
For a split second he rested on his hands and knees, his ear cocked for the rush of feet that would tell him that the thugs below suspected danger from above. Then he moved swiftly to the skylight.
A startling sight met his gaze!
Seated in a chair on a raised dais was Roy Manson, clad partly in Oriental clothing, partly in American raiment. From his vantage point above, the Phantom could see traces of makeup on Manson's face; the partially-removed makeup of a Chinese!
MANSON'S chair faced a door, and a quick glance at the edge of the roof showed the Phantom that it was the door at the head of the stairs leading from the street: the door through which Crowley and his men would pour. Clutched in Manson's hand was a revolver, with the barrel resting across his knee and the muzzle lined directly on the door through which the police officers would storm.
Van's jaw tightened, and the gun in his own hand lined on the figure in the chair below. Then his eyes widened. He dropped to his knees, his face flattened against the glass of the skylight. As he watched, three Chinese had come into his range of vision. They walked around the man in the chair; then one stood behind the chair, took a gun from his pocket and seemed to be practicing aiming at the door.
The Phantom's brow furrowed in a frown as, he puzzled out the peculiar set-up. Then his brow cleared and a light of understanding showed in his eyes.
At the same second the door in the room below burst open, and the pock-faced man rushed into the room. Van saw his lips and hands moved in excited gestures. More Chinese came into the room from a door partly hidden by a screen. As Van watched, a large shadowy figure slipped past the screen, pulling it around, so the man behind it was hidden from sight.
Then the stillness of the night was broken by the shrill wailing of a police siren. The blast of auto horns cacophonied in echo to the wail of the siren. The police had arrived in Mott Street.
For a second the Phantom poised at the edge of the skylight. His eyes raked the floor below, minutely photographing every detail. He saw the large man slide across the floor, and take a position behind the chair that Manson occupied.
Then Van stepped back. Lifting his arms to shield his face, he ran forward. His body rose in a light leap, then descended like a plummet, square through the middle of the skylight!
THE crash of glass lifted the startled eyes of the Chinese, and the sight of the body hurtling down on them paralyzed them for a split second. Then, with a shrill medley of sound, they blazed into action.
But swift as their movements were— the Phantom was faster. His ears caught the rush of stamping feet on the stairs. In a second the police would have crashed through that door into a veritable hail of death.
The Phantom hit on his feet, dropped to his knees and his gun roared twice. The man behind Manson's chair gasped and choked as a lethal bullet smashed through his throat. A second Chinese who stood by the chair toppled over, a dazed look in his eyes; then his sight was blotted by the blood that flowed from the bullet hole between his eyes.
Like a pouncing jaguar, the Phantom sprang from his knees. His hand gripped the back of the chair in which Manson sat, jerked it backward with a swift, savage tug. The chair toppled and Manson crashed out onto the floor.
Bullets rained around the Phantom. He could feel them snicking through his loose clothing; felt the hot burning groove of one that seared the flesh on his ribs. But he was a swiftly moving target as he dodged, swerved and plunged forward toward the door the Chinese had planned to use for an escape.
The door from the stairs crashed open and Crowley darted into the room. A strange sight greeted his eyes. On the floor was a wild-eyed white man, partially robed in Chinese clothing. The room seemed filled with raging, murder-crazed Orientals, who were trying to concentrate their fire on a lone Chinaman who was miraculously dodging through a rainstorm of threatening lethal bullets.
"Don't plug me, Crowley," the Phantom shouted over the roar of the blasting guns. "And don't shoot Manson on the floor. All the rest belong to you."
Even as he yelled, the Phantom continued his plunge toward the door. He reached the screen, slammed it hard with his shoulder and flattened out against it. Then he turned and his Luger mowed a path of death through the now thoroughly terror-stricken Chinese, who were caught between two fires. The trap that Li-Hung had set for the police had sprung to catch them in its horrible, death-dealing teeth.
FOR a few seconds, the guns of the police roared spitefully, answered by a few staccato bursts of fire from the Chinese thugs. Then the few remaining Chinamen backed against the wall, lifting their hands high in gestures of surrender.
The Phantom felt the screen behind his shoulders jerking frantically. He whirled, jerked the screen aside, and his gun leveled on the crouching figure of Li-Hung.
For a long minute, their eyes locked in a bristling, venomous glance of mutual hatred. Then the Phantom spoke. His voice had an edge like a razor as he said:
"Come out here, you murdering rat! One false move and I'll drive a bullet into your crawling, evil brain."
LI-HUNG'S yellow face was a twisted mask of fury and murderous rage as he stepped around the fallen screen, with his hands held shoulder high. Under the menace of the Phantom's gun, he moved out toward the center of the room.
Crowley's eyes slithered from Li-Hung to the motionless figure of Manson, still sprawled on the floor. Reading the bewilderment in the gaze of the police official, the Phantom spoke to one of the police detectives. He said:
"Pick up that chair and lift it on the dais, will you, Dugan? You can see the marks of the legs on the platform. It faces the door."
Two of the detectives lifted the chair and swung it on the platform. Without taking his eyes from Li-Hung, the Phantom spoke again, saying:
"Now lift Manson into the chair. A couple of you better lift him. He's been paralyzed by some sort of an Oriental drug."
Manson was lifted into the chair, and the gun that was still held so stiffly in his clenched hand dropped across his knee again. The Phantom stepped around where he could watch Li-Hung and Crowley at the same time.
"What do you think of that setup, Inspector?" he asked.
"Well— I'll be damned," Crowley muttered. "He was all set to plug us from the door, when you must have busted it up." Crowley's eyes lifted to the shattered skylight, and he nodded his head comprehendingly.
Then his eyes went balefully to Manson's face, and he rasped:
"So this is the renegade white man who has been behind this yellow devil in his campaign of murder. We'll finish paralyzing him— in the electric chair."
The Phantom laughed softly, and his eyes riveted on Li-Hung's now blank and emotionless face.
"That's what you were supposed to think, when you came in the door," the Phantom said. "It was all set, so that a man behind this chair would blaze a shot as you and your men came in the door. It would look as though Manson had been trapped, and had fired.
"Naturally, he would be the first target for your bullets. He would have been wiped out— while the real villain made his escape with a completely blocked trail behind him. Manson would be dead, labeled with the murders of the Lanes, Fowler and Higgins."
"Then Manson isn't the man who engineered the crimes?" Crowley's voice was incredulous. "That shoots our theory that a white man instigated these killings."
THE Phantom's eyes slitted on the face of Li-Hung. Without turning his head, he said to Crowley:
"Have a couple of your men cover this murdering beast with their guns. I want to show you something."
The Phantom's fingers probed beneath the voluminous folds of his Chinese blouse, and found the flat makeup kit he wore strapped next to his skin. He took out a thin vial, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and poured a small quantity of the liquid on the folded linen. Then he walked toward Li-Hung. "No, Crowley," he said. "We weren't wrong about our theory. A white man was responsible for these murders— a white man named— John Twombly."
The Phantom's hand moved with the speed of a flashing ray of light. The wet handkerchief swished across Li-Hung's forehead, and a broad stripe of white flesh showed beneath the yellow. Another swift movement of the Phantom's hand across the black hair, and another light streak showed, the straw-colored hair of Twombly.
The Phantom stepped back. The two swift strokes across the perfect makeup were enough to destroy the whole illusion. The mystery man who had baffled the police for months was finally exposed by the clever deductions of the Phantom.
Li-Hung and John Twombly were the same!
CROWLEY'S eyes filled with admiration. "And we've been trailing Li-Hung for months," he exclaimed, "while Twombly has been around laughing at our efforts. How did you first get wise to the deception?" The Phantom's eyes got dark, and his mouth tightened into a thin, straight line. His voice was raspy as he said:
"It was when Li-Hung ordered me to be beheaded. I figured that the Phantom's career was ended, and I was determined to take this murdering thief out with me before I went. So I tried to strangle him. His men got me— but not before I had gotten close enough to Li-Hung to detect signs of makeup. Damned clever makeup, I'll admit, but it could be distinguished when I was that close.
"Then I knew that some white man had been masquerading as a Chinese, baffling the police and myself. It looked like Twombly, Fowler or Manson. All three had lived in China, probably all three spoke Chinese."
"You were right there," Crowley admitted. "My men picked up that point. All three did talk the language like experts."
"The night I called at Twombly's apartment, I heard him speak to his servant in Chinese, and the tones were those of Li-Hung. I was almost positive then— but I had no proof. Another point was gained when I saw an old-fashioned watch on Twombly's table."
CROWLEY looked puzzled, but the Phantom went on to explain in more detail:
"The night I was captured at the cemetery, I heard a cheap watch ticking in the pocket of Li-Hung. Naturally, a white man masquerading as a Chinaman couldn't wear a wrist-watch. All three suspects had wrist-watches at your office the next morning. So I wanted to find one with a cheap, old-fashioned watch that ticked so loud that it could be heard a couple of feet away. Twombly had a watch like that."
"I can see all that," Crowley said. "But didn't you figure at the cemetery, when Higgins made the raid on the crypt, that it was Fowler who was in back of the deal?"
"No," the Phantom replied. "The Chinaman who nearly knocked us over in his car was a spy left there by Li-Hung. Higgins heard Fowler talking with me, and also read some cables that Fowler got from China. He put two and two together, and decided that something of value must have been hidden in the Lane vault. So he raided the vault, but a Twombly spy identified him, and rushed back to tell Twombly. Then Higgins paid the penalty of trying to beat this monster to the loot. Fowler got killed because he had learned too much about the murders of Luthier and Eric Lane."
"You mean— that Eric Lane was murdered, too?"
"Yes. That was the start of the plot. Twombly got hold of some valuable jewels in China— gems of the former Imperial dynasty that his bandits over there had confiscated from the Empress Quon Shang. He planned Eric Lane's death to have a means of smuggling the gems across. The body was switched to another casket, and the gems were sent across in Eric Lane's coffin. Twombly knew that no suspicion would ever be attached to the coffin of a nationally known young hero and famous aviator like Eric."
"That covers everything except the murder of Wilson, the secretary. I suppose that was an accident. You were intended to be the victim in that killing," Crowley said.
"No, Crowley, I don't think so. I think that Twombly was trying to kill two birds with one stone there. Wilson had evidently discovered that Twombly was masquerading as Li-Hung. Twombly felt that his secretary knew too much and he planned to do away with him— but he was making sure that, if anything slipped up, he himself would be in the clear.
"TWOMBLY intended to get me— and to make Wilson's death look like an accident at the same time. But he planned too carefully— for I heard Wilson scream, 'I haven't told anything' just before he was shot down. That made me all the more suspicious of Twombly, in spite of the flesh wound that he inflicted in his own shoulder, trying to make the attack look more real.
"He showed me the bullet hole in his coat— but he couldn't see that the threads around the hole were burned, showing the gun was held close to the fabric of the coat. So you see, Wilson's murder was planned as carefully as the other killings."
Crowley's eyes went wide in horror— then they slitted until they were narrow, glittering points of ice. He took a step toward Twombly and his lip drew back in a savage snarl.
"The dirty, cowardly, murdering whelp," he raged. "Murdering a fine lad like Eric Lane— just to smuggle some lousy jewels into this country. I've got a mind to strangle him with my bare hands."
Twombly's face got strained under the rage in the husky Irishman's voice. Then the yellow face with the streak of white across the forehead, contorted into a cruel, insane mask of madness. Twombly's hands moved like yellow streaks of lightning.
The Phantom's body whipped around, and his voice was almost a scream as he yelled:
"Duck, Crowley— poison darts— a blow-gun!"
Even as he spoke, the Phantom's left hand shot out, caught Crowley on the shoulder and staggered him sideways. Van's right hand was swinging upward; his finger tugged at the trigger of his Luger.
The room reverberated to the roar of the gun. Twombly's hands paused, halfway to his face. In his right hand he clutched a small, thin bamboo tube that he was lifting to his lips.
FOR a split second a look of amazement spread over the face of the renegade. Then his eyes widened and dropped to the crimson stain that was spreading across the front of the gold robe he wore. He took a little step forward; tried to complete the motion of lifting the tube to his lips.
The Phantom was crouched, his eyes riveted on the face that was now slowly stiffening in death. His finger caressed the trigger of his gun, ready to drive another bullet into the arch fiend in the Chinese costume, before the killer could drive one of his poison darts through the blow-gun.
Twombly swayed back and forth on his feet. A horrible expression plucked at the muscles of his face. His eyes burned with the febrile glare of hatred— hatred that he would carry with him to the grave— a fierce, scalding hatred for the man who had outwitted him, in all of his fiendish ingenuity. Then Twombly suddenly collapsed and sprawled on the floor, a limp, inert mass of evil human flesh.
CROWLEY dragged his hand across his forehead, wiped away the drops of perspiration that had gathered there.
"So that's how Lane and Fowler got their poison," he muttered with horrified understanding. "And the darts were removed from the bodies to destroy all evidence of the manner of killing."
The Phantom nodded, said:
"He had the mind of a scientist. That poison was one of his own concoctions, I imagine. So was the drug that he used to paralyze Manson. It was that devilishly ingenious brain that enabled him to keep his Chinese thugs in line. They never knew what fiendish form of punishment he might devise, if they bucked up on him."
"Speaking of Manson," Crowley said, "didn't it look pretty bad for him, when you spotted that thug coming out of Manson's room?"
"That was the first time I was shaken in my theory," the Phantom confessed. "Then I figured it out this way: With the elimination of Fowler, the case was limited to Twombly and Manson. Planting that man seemed a little too obvious. A man as clever as I know Li-Hung to be, would never stand for one of his men calling on him in daylight, especially when he was being tailed by men from Headquarters.
"So I knew it must be a frame-up. Twombly hoped to throw suspicion on Manson. When that failed to result in Manson's arrest— he tried more desperate measures. He sent his men up the fire escape to capture Manson, then tried to spring this trap here. Manson would have been left holding the bag unless I had arrived in time to save him."
Crowley shook his head slowly. He looked at Manson, who was slowly regaining the use of his limbs, and grinned sardonically. "You accused us of trying to frame you— but we've pulled you out of a death frame. I hope you know now that as long as you behave, the law is on your side." He turned to one of his men and said:
"Go call the Black Maria. We'll put the rest of these murdering heathens where they won't do any more killing for a while."
"Better have your men make a search of the building," the Phantom advised. "Twombly's got the jewels stored around here somewhere, I guess. They ought to be worth a fortune— if he took a chance like that to get them over here."
Crowley started his men on the search and fifteen minutes later they discovered the cache of stolen goods of Li-Hung's mob. They brought up the two sacks of gleaming jewels, and Crowley whistled in surprise as he saw them. He turned to remark on their beauty to the Phantom— but the tall figure in the Chinese makeup was gone. The Phantom had finished his work— and left.
Back in Frank Havens' library, a weary, gaunt-eyed young man lounged back in an easy chair and blew little clouds of smoke at the ceiling. He said:
"Did you send that cable yet, Frank?"
Havens' eyes were somber as he replied:
"YES, Dick. Eric's body will be shipped home on the next boat. Poor Eric— sacrificed to the greed of cold-blooded devil. They say the dead don't speak from the grave— but Eric Lane certainly spoke when the Chinese authorities discovered his coffin in a corner of the warehouse at the customs station. When they cabled Fowler, as flight backer, on what disposition he wanted to make of the body— it started a chain of evidence that led right to Twombly."
"Yes," the Phantom said thoughtfully. "It was almost a voice from the tomb— from the tomb of death where Eric will be placed when his body arrives."
He jabbed out his cigarette and rose wearily.
"I'm going home, Frank," he said. "I'm tired— tired to death of murderers who kill nice kids like Eric Lane."
Havens nodded his head sympathetically, but deep in his heart he knew that, before many days passed, another case would arise— and once more the Phantom would be on the trail, the Nemesis of crime. For that was the inevitable destiny of the Phantom.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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